\nLA JOLLA\u2014For most people, the urge to eat a meal or snack comes at a few, predictable times during the waking part of the day. But for those with a rare syndrome, hunger comes at unwanted hours, interrupts sleep and causes overeating.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow, Salk scientists have discovered a pair of genes that normally keeps eating schedules in sync with daily sleep rhythms, and, when mutated, may play a role in so-called night eating syndrome. In mice with mutations in one of the genes, eating patterns are shifted, leading to unusual mealtimes and weight gain. The results were published in Cell Reports<\/a><\/em> today.\n<\/p>\n “We really never expected that we would be able to decouple the sleep-wake cycle and the eating cycle, especially with a simple mutation,” says senior study author Satchidananda Panda<\/a>, an associate professor in Salk’s Laboratorio de Biolog\u00eda Reguladora<\/a>. “It opens up a whole lot of future questions about how these cycles are regulated.”\n<\/p>\n More than a decade ago, researchers discovered that individuals with an inherited sleep disorder often carry a particular mutation in a protein called PER2. The mutation is in an area of the protein that can be phosphorylated\u2014the ability to bond with a phosphate chemical that changes the protein’s function. Humans have three PER, or period, genes, all thought to play a role in the daily circadian clock and all containing the same phosphorylation spot.\n<\/p>\n \n