Prednisolone-induced differential gene expression in liver of mice carrying the wild type or a dimerization-defective glucocorticoid receptor. Mus musculus

Glucocorticoids control expression of a large number of genes after binding to the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Transcription may be regulated either by binding of the GR dimer to DNA regulatory elements or by protein-protein interactions of GR monomers with other transcription factors. Although the type of regulation for a number of individual target genes is known, the relative contribution of both mechanisms to the regulation of the entire transcriptional program remains elusive. To study the importance of GR dimerization in regulation of gene expression, we performed gene expression profiling in liver of prednisolone-treated wild type (WT) and genetically engineered mice that have lost the ability to form GR-dimers (GRdim). Overall design: Mice carrying a wild type (WT) glucocorticoid receptor or a dimerization-defective glucocorticoid receptor (GRdim) were treated subcutaneous with vehicle or prednisolone (1mg/kg) and sacrificed 150 minutes later. From the livers of these mice total RNA was extracted, processed and hybridized on Affymetrix microarrays. In total 24 mice (6 vehicle-treated WT mice, 6 prednisolone-treated WT mice, 6 vehicle-treated GRdim mice and 6 prednisolone-treated GRdim mice) were included in the study.