Expression of estrogen receptor (ER) - α and - β transcripts in the neonatal and adult rat cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and olfactory bulb

Abstract

In the present study expression of estrogen receptor subtype -(ER α) and -(ER ) in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and olfactory bulb was investigated and compared between neonatal (1 ~ 3-days-old) and adult (250 ~ 350g) rats, using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). No ERa transcripts were detectable in the adult cerebellum and olfactory bulb, whereas very weak expression of ERa was present in the adult cerebral cortex. No significant difference in ERb transcripts was detectable between the neonatal and adult rats. While transcripts for both ER subtypes were co-expressed in these brain areas of neonatal rats, although ERa expression was significantly weaker than ER . Even in the cerebral cortex known to contain both ER subtypes in adult rats, ERa transcripts in neonatal rats were much higher than in adult. These observations provide evidence for the existence of different expression patterns of ER /ER transcripts in these three brain areas between the neonatal and adult rats, suggesting that each ER subtype may play a distinct role in the regulation of differentiation, development, and functions of the brain by estrogen.

Distribution of estrogen receptor beta containing cells in the brains of bacterial artificial chromosome transgenic mice

“…Our finding that ERβ-EGFP cells are in the cortex, hippocampal formation and olfactory bulb agrees with previous reports of ERβ in these areas (Guo et al, 2001;Liu et al, 2008). ERβ expression in these areas has been implicated in learning and memory.…”

Ontogeny of Rapid Estrogen-Mediated Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Signaling in the Rat Cerebellar Cortex: Potent Nongenomic Agonist and Endocrine Disrupting Activity of the Xenoestrogen Bisphenol A

“…Because of the disconnect between the sexual/reproductive actions of E 2 , and current understanding of cerebellar development and function, the idea that the cerebellum is a primary E 2 -sensitive brain region has remained controversial. This controversy persists despite numerous in vitro and in vivo studies that clearly demonstrate ERs are expressed and functional in the developing and adult cerebellum (15,(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45). Because there is little evidence supporting sexual differentiation of the cerebellum, we reasoned that during cerebellar development, E 2 is involved with general developmental effects that represent a subset of E 2 responses mediated through regulation of growth factor-like intracellular signaling.…”

Facilitated acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response in women taking oral contraceptives

“…Ovarian hormones have been discussed as a modulator of activity in the cochlear nuclei (Simerly et al, 1990;Coleman et al, 1994;Nathan et al, 1999), which could explain differences in startle sensitivity between our OC and non-OC users. Of course, we need to also consider that there are ovarian hormone receptors in the cerebellum (Shughrue et al, 1997;Guo et al, 2001;Shughrue and Merchenthaler, 2001;Curran-Rauhut and Petersen, 2002;Guerra-Araiza et al, 2002;Struble et al, 2003) which is the critical structure for integrating the CS-US pathways for eyeblink conditioning under short trace and delay conditions (Thompson, 2005). How ovarian hormones would be affecting cerebellar processing of these signals is unknown, but others have shown these hormones influence the expression of apolipoprotein E (Struble et al, 2003) and the amount of myelination (Ghoumari et al, 2003) in the cerebellum.…”