GSE176277
ZBTB32 performs crosstalk with the glucocorticoid receptor and is crucial in glucocorticoid responses to starvation
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis forms a complex neuroendocrine system that interacts directly via feedforward and feedback reactions to regulate the body's response to stress such as starvation. In contrast with the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), ZBTB32 (zinc finger and BTB domain containing 32) is a transcription factor with very poorly described functional relevance in physiology. We investigated the importance of ZBTB32 on the HPA axis functioning and found that it is essential for the production of glucocorticoids (GCs) in response to starvation, because ZBTB32-/- mice fail to increase the GC production during prolonged absence of nutrients. In terms of mechanism, GR-mediated upregulation of adrenal Scarb1 gene expression was absent in ZBTB32-/- mice, implicating defective cholesterol import as the cause of the poor GC synthesis. Lower GC levels in ZBTB32-/- mice are further associated with aberrations in the metabolic adaptation to starvation, which could potentially explain the progressive weight gain of ZBTB32-/- mice. Moreover, this study identifies that ZBTB32 performs a crosstalk with the GR in the metabolic adaptation to starvation via regulation of adrenal GC production. Overall design: Genome wide expression profiling of response to DEX (2h) in wild type and Zbtb32 KO mice. A total of 4 conditions (3 biological replicates per condition) were used in total