Phenobarbital Induces Cell Cycle Transcriptional Responses in Mouse Liver Humanized for Constitutive Androstane and Pregnane X Receptors (mRNA). Mus musculus

The constitutive androstane receptor (CAR) and the pregnane X receptor (PXR) are closely related nuclear receptors involved in drug metabolism and play important roles in the mechanism of phenobarbital (PB)-induced rodent nongenotoxic hepatocarcino- genesis. Here, we have used a humanized CAR/PXR mouse model to examine potential species differences in receptor-dependent mechanisms underlying liver tissue molecular responses to PB. Early and late transcriptomic responses to sustained PB exposure were investigated in liver tissue from double knock-out CAR and PXR (CARKO -PXRKO ), double humanized CAR and PXR (CARh - PXRh), and wild-type C57BL/6 mice. Wild-type and CARh-PXRh mouse livers exhibited temporally and quantitatively similar tran- scriptional responses during 91 days of PB exposure including the sustained induction of the xenobiotic response gene Cyp2b10, the Wnt signaling inhibitor Wisp1, and noncoding RNA biomarkers from the Dlk1-Dio3 locus. Transient induction of DNA replication (Hells, Mcm6, and Esco2) and mitotic genes (Ccnb2, Cdc20, and Cdk1) and the proliferation-related nuclear antigen Mki67 were ob- served with peak expression occurring between 1 and 7 days PB ex- posure. All these transcriptional responses were absent in CARKO- PXRKO mouse livers and largely reversible in wild-type and CARh - PXRh mouse livers following 91 days of PB exposure and a subse- quent 4-week recovery period. Furthermore, PB-mediated upregu- lation of the noncoding RNA Meg3, which has recently been associ- ated with cellular pluripotency, exhibited a similar dose response and perivenous hepatocyte-specific localization in both wild-type and CARh-PXRh mice. Thus, mouse livers coexpressing human CAR and PXR support both the xenobiotic metabolizing and the proliferative transcriptional responses following exposure to PB. Overall design: 13-week oral (drinking water) investigative phenobarbital study in male C57BL/6 wild type, CAR/PXR knockout and humanized CAR/PXR mice with a 4 week recovery period