Estrogens and selective estrogen receptor modulators differentially antagonize Runx2 in ST2 mesenchymal progenitor cells

This study investigates how 17ß-estradiol (E2) both stimulates and inhibits Runx2 in a locus-specific manner. We compare the effects of E2 to those of the Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs) raloxifene (ral) and lasofoxifen (las) and the phytoestrogen peurarin 15-week old C57BL/6 female mice, either wild type or mice with deletion of ERα-AF1, were ovariectomized and injected subcutaneously one week later with either E2 (115 µg/kg body weight) or olive oil vehicle (Apoteksbolaget, Göteborg, Sweden). Mice were sacrificed after 18 hours of treatment and RNA was isolated from either long bone shafts (flushed femora and tibiae) or vertebral bodies (L5+L6) using an RNAlater reagent (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Gene expression was profiled at the Southern California Genotyping Consortium (SCGC) using MouseRef-8 v2.0 Illumina BeadChips (n=5 mice per group). Microarray analysis of RNA extracted from certebral bodies or long bone shafts of ovariectomized mice, wild type or Era-AF1 deletion