Glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptor activation modulates postnatal growth

During early development, stress or exogenous glucocorticoid (GC) administration reduces body mass in vertebrates, and this is associated with the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) activation. Although GCs also activate the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), the physiological significance of MR activation on early developmental growth is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that activation of both GR and MR are required for postnatal growth suppression by GCs. Differential regulation of GR and MR activation was achieved by using ubiquitous GR- (GRKO) and MR- (MRKO) knockout zebrafish (Danio rerio) in combination with exogenous cortisol treatment. MR activation increased protein deposition in zebrafish larvae and also upregulated lepa and downregulated lepr transcript abundance. Cortisol treatment reduced body mass and protein content in the WT, and this corresponded with the upregulation of muscle proteolytic markers, including murf1 and redd1 by GR activation. The combined activation of MR and GR by cortisol also upregulated the gh and igf1 transcript abundance, and insulin expression compared to the WT. However, cortisol-mediated reduction in body mass and protein content required the activation of both MR and GR, as activation by GR alone (MRKO + cortisol) did not reduce the larval protein content. Collectively, our results indicate that MR activation favors protein deposition and GR activation stimulates proteolysis, while their combined activation is involved in cortisol-mediated growth suppression. Overall, this work provides insight into the physiological significance of MR activation in regulating protein deposition during early development at a systems level.