The role of sleep deprivation in prostate cancer and a preliminary exploration of its mechanisms

Previous studies suggested the link between sleep deprivation and prostate cancer, but its impact on disease progression is unclear. Moreover, clarifying this relationship could offer insights into prostate cancer mechanisms and potential treatments. In the present study, questionnaire and sleep monitoring of prostate cancer patients indicate that worse sleep quality correlates with higher Gleason scores. Subsequently, to study the effects of sleep deprivation in vivo, a sleep deprivation mouse model was established. Our findings show that sleep deprivation could accelerate tumor growth. Then, we performed transcriptome sequencing to infer the underlying mechanism. RNA sequencing found inflammation related pathways were activated in the sleep deprivation model. Moreover, we identified CXCL13 as a key mediator of sleep deprivation induced prostate progression. And inhibition of CXCR5, the receptor of CXCL13, reduced its tumor promoting effects. Molecular mechanism studies showed that CXCL13 enhanced cancer cell proliferation via activating JNK signaling pathway. In summary, our findings suggest that sleep deprivation may accelerate prostate cancer progression by activating the CXCL13/CXCR5/JNK signaling axis. These results provide preliminary insights into a potential therapeutic direction.