{"id":5573,"date":"2022-08-16T12:07:54","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T16:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/?p=5573"},"modified":"2022-08-16T12:07:54","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T16:07:54","slug":"dr-zhao-wen-wang-received-a-new-award-of-2-83-million-from-nih","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/2022\/08\/16\/dr-zhao-wen-wang-received-a-new-award-of-2-83-million-from-nih\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Zhao-Wen Wang received a new award of 2.83 million from NIH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melatonin is a sleep-promoting hormone acting through melatonin receptors. However, the downstream molecular target(s) for its sleep-promoting effect has remained elusive. In a recent study from Dr. Wang\u2019s lab (Niu et al., <em>PNAS<\/em>\u00a0117:\u00a025128-25137, 2020), it was found that melatonin promotes sleep in <em>C. elegans<\/em> by activating the BK channel (also known as SLO-1 in worms and Slo1 in mammals) through a specific melatonin receptor. In addition, it was found that human Slo1 may be activated by melatonin in the presence of the MT<sub>1<\/sub> but not MT<sub>2<\/sub> melatonin receptor in the <em>Xenopus<\/em> oocyte heterologous expression system. SLO-1\/Slo1 is a key regulator of neurotransmitter release, and plays important roles in the circadian rhythm. These findings with <em>C. elegans<\/em> and <em>Xenopus<\/em> oocytes suggest that melatonin might promote sleep in mammals by activating Slo1 through the MT<sub>1<\/sub> melatonin receptor. This NIH award supports the efforts of Dr. Wang\u2019s lab to investigate whether melatonin can activate Slo1 in mice through a specific melatonin receptor, how SLO-1 contributes to sleep in <em>C. elegans<\/em>, and how SLO-1 endocytosis is regulated by a novel molecular pathway. <strong>Please visit the website of <em>C. elegans<\/em> Neurobiology Lab (<a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/worm-lab\/\">https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/worm-lab\/<\/a>) for additional information about the lab, including potential lab rotation projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melatonin is a sleep-promoting hormone acting through melatonin receptors. However, the downstream molecular target(s) for its sleep-promoting effect has remained elusive. In a recent study from Dr. Wang\u2019s lab (Niu et al., PNAS\u00a0117:\u00a025128-25137, 2020), it was found that melatonin promotes sleep in C. elegans by activating the BK channel (also known as SLO-1 in worms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2772,"featured_media":5574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 09:33:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2772"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5573"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5576,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573\/revisions\/5576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/neuroscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}