Acute sleep disruption- and high-fat diet-induced hypothalamic inflammation are not related to glucose tolerance in mice

Chronic insufficient sleep is a major societal problem and is associated with increased risk of metabolic disease. Hypothalamic inflammation contributes to hyperphagia and weight gain in diet-induced obesity, but insufficient sleep-induced neuroinflammation has yet to be examined in relation to metabolic function. We therefore fragmented sleep of adult male C57BL/6 J mice for 18 h daily for 9 days to determine whether sleep disruption elicits inflammatory responses in brain regions that regulate energy balance and whether this relates to glycemic control. To additionally test the hypothesis that exposure to multiple inflammatory factors exacerbates metabolic outcomes, responses were compared in mice exposed to sleep fragmentation (SF), high-fat diet (HFD), both SF and HFD, or control conditions. Three or 9 days of high-fat feeding reduced glucose tolerance but SF alone did not. Transient loss of body mass in SF mice may have affected outcomes. Comparisons of pro-inflammatory cytokine concentrations among central and peripheral metabolic tissues indicate that patterns of liver interleukin-1β concentrations best reflects observed changes in glucose tolerance. However, we demonstrate that SF rapidly and potently increases Iba1 immunoreactivity (-ir), a marker of microglia. After 9 days of manipulations, Iba1-ir remains elevated only in mice exposed to both SF and HFD, indicating a novel interaction between sleep and diet on microglial activation that warrants further investigation.