scholarly journals A role of unliganded thyroid hormone receptor in postembryonic development in Xenopus laevis

2007 ◽  
Vol 124 (6) ◽  
pp. 476-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yukiyasu Sato ◽  
Daniel R. Buchholz ◽  
Bindu D. Paul ◽  
Yun-Bo Shi
1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 5079-5089 ◽  
Author(s):  
D E Banker ◽  
J Bigler ◽  
R N Eisenman

The c-erbA proto-oncogene encodes the thyroid hormone receptor, a ligand-dependent transcription factor which plays an important role in vertebrate growth and development. To define the role of the thyroid hormone receptor in developmental processes, we have begun studying c-erbA gene expression during the ontogeny of Xenopus laevis, an organism in which thyroid hormone has well-documented effects on morphogenesis. Using polymerase chain reactions (PCR) as a sensitive assay of specific gene expression, we found that polyadenylated erbA alpha RNA is present in Xenopus cells at early developmental stages, including the fertilized egg, blastula, gastrula, and neurula. By performing erbA alpha-specific PCR on reverse-transcribed RNAs from high-density sucrose gradient fractions prepared from early-stage embryos, we have demonstrated that these erbA transcripts are recruited to polysomes. Therefore, erbA is expressed in Xenopus development prior to the appearance of the thyroid gland anlage in tailbud-stage embryos. This implies that erbA alpha/thyroid hormone receptors may play ligand-independent roles during the early development of X. laevis. Quantitative PCR revealed a greater than 25-fold range in the steady-state levels of polyadenylated erbA alpha RNA across early stages of development, as expressed relative to equimolar amounts of total embryonic RNA. Substantial increases in the levels of erbA alpha RNA were noted at stages well after the onset of zygotic transcription at the mid-blastula transition, with accumulation of erbA alpha transcripts reaching a relative maximum in advance of metamorphosis. We also show that erbA alpha RNAs are expressed unequally across Xenopus neural tube embryos. This differential expression continues through later stages of development, including metamorphosis. This finding suggests that erbA alpha/thyroid hormone receptors may play roles in tissue-specific processes across all of Xenopus development.


2004 ◽  
Vol 24 (20) ◽  
pp. 9026-9037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Buchholz ◽  
Akihiro Tomita ◽  
Liezhen Fu ◽  
Bindu D. Paul ◽  
Yun-Bo Shi

ABSTRACT Thyroid hormone (T3) has long been known to be important for vertebrate development and adult organ function. Whereas thyroid hormone receptor (TR) knockout and transgenic studies of mice have implicated TR involvement in mammalian development, the underlying molecular bases for the resulting phenotypes remain to be determined in vivo, especially considering that T3 is known to have both genomic, i.e., through TRs, and nongenomic effects on cells. Amphibian metamorphosis is an excellent model for studying the role of TR in vertebrate development because of its total dependence on T3. Here we investigated the role of TR in metamorphosis by developing a dominant positive mutant thyroid hormone receptor (dpTR). In the frog oocyte transcription system, dpTR bound a T3-responsive promoter and activated the promoter independently of T3. Transgenic expression of dpTR under the control of a heat shock-inducible promoter in premetamorphic tadpoles led to precocious metamorphic transformations. Molecular analyses showed that dpTR induced metamorphosis by specifically binding to known T3 target genes, leading to increased local histone acetylation and gene activation, similar to T3-bound TR during natural metamorphosis. Our experiments indicated that the metamorphic role of T3 is through genomic action of the hormone, at least on the developmental parameters tested. They further provide the first example where TR is shown to mediate directly and sufficiently these developmental effects of T3 in individual organs by regulating target gene expression in these organs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Perra ◽  
Marta Anna Kowalik ◽  
Lavinia Cabras ◽  
Massimiliano Runfola ◽  
Simona Sestito ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 197 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Kwakkel ◽  
O Chassande ◽  
H C van Beeren ◽  
W M Wiersinga ◽  
A Boelen

The downregulation of liver deiodinase type 1 (D1) is supposed to be one of the mechanisms behind the decrease in serum tri-iodothyronine (T3) observed during non-thyroidal illness (NTI). Liver D1 mRNA expression is positively regulated by T3, mainly via the thyroid hormone receptor (TR)β1. One might thus expect that lacking the TRβ gene would result in diminished downregulation of liver D1 expression and a smaller decrease in serum T3 during illness. In this study, we used TRβ−/− mice to evaluate the role of TRβ in lipopolysaccharide (LPS, a bacterial endotoxin)-induced changes in thyroid hormone metabolism. Our results show that the LPS-induced serum T3 and thyroxine and liver D1 decrease takes place despite the absence of TRβ. Furthermore, we observed basal differences in liver D1 mRNA and activity between TRβ−/− and wild-type mice and TRβ−/− males and females, which did not result in differences in serum T3. Serum T3 decreased rapidly after LPS administration, followed by decreased liver D1, indicating that the contribution of liver D1 during NTI may be limited with respect to decreased serum T3 levels. Muscle D2 mRNA did not compensate for the low basal liver D1 observed in TRβ−/− mice and increased in response to LPS in TRβ−/− and WT mice. Other (TRβ independent) mechanisms like decreased thyroidal secretion and decreased binding to thyroid hormone-binding proteins probably play a role in the early decrease in serum T3 observed in this study.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document