Billas, I. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2026

Interdependent androgen and glucocorticoid receptor signalling shapes prostate epithelial homeostasis

Androgen signalling is essential for prostate secretory functions and epithelial cell maintenance, yet how this signal is translated into a transcriptional output remains poorly understood. Androgens functions are primarily mediated by the androgen receptor (AR), which binds hormone response elements similar to those of other steroid receptors, including the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Here we show that AR and GR are co-expressed in the prostate epithelium, and co-located within nuclear foci. Moreover, GR promotes the formation and dynamics of AR nuclear condensates, and heterodimerizes with AR in a ligand-binding domain-dependent manner. In addition, subtle variations within the hormone response element sequence direct the co-recruitment of AR and GR into activator or repressor complexes to activate or repress gene expression. Finally, prostate-specific deletion of GR in mice disrupts AR nuclear distribution, impairs AR-dependent gene networks involved in epithelial maintenance, and promotes the expression of genes involved in metabolism and cell cycle, resulting in altered tissue homeostasis. Thus, these findings identify GR as an integral component of the AR transcriptional machinery in epithelial cells of the healthy prostate, and reveal how shared cis-regulatory elements are interpreted to generate distinct transcriptional outcomes.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2020

A Structural Signature Motif Enlightens the Origin and Diversification of Nuclear Receptors

Nuclear receptors are ligand-activated transcription factors that modulate gene regulatory networks from embryonic development to adult physiology and thus represent major targets for clinical interventions in many diseases. Most nuclear receptors function either as homodimers or as heterodimers. The dimerization is crucial for gene regulation by nuclear receptors, by extending the repertoire of binding sites in the promoters or the enhancers of target genes via combinatorial interactions. Here, we focused our attention on an unusual structural variation of the -helix, called {pi}-turn that is present in helix H7 of the ligand-binding domain of RXR and HNF4. By tracing back the complex evolutionary history of the {pi}-turn, we demonstrate that it was present ancestrally and then independently lost in several nuclear receptor lineages. Importantly, the evolutionary history of the {pi}-turn motif is parallel to the evolutionary diversification of the nuclear receptor dimerization ability from ancestral homodimers to derived heterodimers. We then carried out structural and biophysical analyses, in particular through point mutation studies of key RXR signature residues and showed that this motif plays a critical role in the network of interactions stabilizing homodimers. We further showed that the {pi}-turn was instrumental in allowing a flexible heterodimeric interface of RXR in order to accommodate multiple interfaces with numerous partners and critical for the emergence of high affinity receptors. Altogether, our work allows to identify a functional role for the {pi}-turn in oligomerization of nuclear receptors and reveals how this motif is linked to the emergence of a critical biological function. We conclude that the {pi}-turn can be viewed as a structural exaptation that has contributed to enlarging the functional repertoire of nuclear receptors.

evolutionary biology↗