Relative contribution of molecular mechanisms to cumulative ligand-mediated downregulation of GRα

Central to the pharmacological use of glucocorticoids (GCs) is the availability of the glucocorticoid receptor alpha (GRα). However, chronic GC therapy often results in the ligand-mediated downregulation of the GRα, and the subsequent development of an acquired GC resistance. While studies have demonstrated the dimerization-dependent downregulation of GRα, as well as the molecular mechanisms through which ligand-mediated downregulation occurs, little is known regarding the relative contribution of these molecular mechanisms to the cumulative ligand-mediated downregulation of the receptor, especially within an endogenous system. Thus, to probe this, the current study evaluates the conformational-dependent regulation of GRα protein using mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells containing either wild type GRα (MEFwt) or the dimerization deficient GRα mutant (MEFdim) and inhibitors of transcription, translation, and proteasomal degradation. Results show that the promotion of GRα dimerization increases the downregulation of the receptor via two main mechanisms, proteasomal degradation of the receptor protein, and downregulation of GRwt mRNA transcripts. In contrast, when receptor dimerization is restricted these two mechanisms play a lesser role and results suggest that stabilization of GRα protein by non-coding RNAs may potentially be the major regulatory mechanism. Together, these findings clarify the relative contribution of the molecular mechanisms involved in ligand-mediated downregulation of GRα and provides pharmacological targets for the development of GRα ligands with a more favourable therapeutic index.