Commentary: the year in nuclear receptor control of metabolism

Estrogen Receptor β as a Pharmaceutical Target

A major issue in clinical endocrinology today is how to use hormones to achieve the health benefits that they clearly can provide but avoid the negative side effects, that is, how to develop more precise medicines. This problem of how to use hormones is pervasive in clinical endocrinology. It is true for estrogen, progesterone, androgen, vitamin D, and thyroid hormone, and the problem is amplified in the case of new ligands for the more recently discovered nuclear receptors. Selective targeting of hormone receptor subtypes is one attractive way to harness the beneficial effects of hormones while reducing unwanted side effects. Here, we focus on estrogen receptor (ER)β, which has promise as a selective target in hormone replacement therapy, and in breast and prostate cancers.

The emerging role of constitutive androstane receptor and its cross talk with liver X receptors and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor A in lipid metabolism

The regulation of lipid metabolism is central to energy homeostasis in higher multicellular organisms. Lipid homeostasis depends on factors that are able to transduce metabolic parameters into regulatory events representing the fundamental components of the general control system. Nuclear receptors form a superfamily of ligand-activated transcription factors implicated in various physiological functions including energy metabolism. The constitutive androstane receptor (CAR, NR1I3), initially identified as a xenobiotic-sensing receptor, may also have roles in lipid homeostasis. The nuclear receptors liver X receptors (LXRs, NR1H2/3) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs, NR1C) have been known for their roles in lipid metabolism. LXR is a sterol sensor that promotes lipogenesis, whereas PPARα controls a variety of genes in several pathways of lipid metabolism. This chapter focuses primarily on the role of CAR in lipid metabolism directly or through its cross talk with LXRs and PPARα.