Mechanistic insights into steroid hormone-mediated regulation of the androgen receptor gene

Expression of the androgen receptor is key to the response of cells and tissues to androgenic steroids, such as testosterone or dihydrotestosterone, as well as impacting the benefit of hormone-dependent therapies for endocrine diseases and hormone-dependent cancers. However, the mechanisms controlling androgen receptor expression are not fully understood, limiting our ability to effectively promote or inhibit androgenic signalling therapeutically. An autoregulatory loop has been described in which androgen receptor may repress its own expression in the presence of hormone, although the molecular mechanisms are not fully understood. In this work, we elucidate the mechanisms of autoregulation and demonstrate, for the first time, that a similar repression of the AR gene is facilitated by the progesterone receptor. We show that the progesterone receptor, like the androgen receptor binds to response elements within the AR gene to effect transcriptional repression in response to hormone treatment. Mechanistically, this repression involves hormone-dependent histone deacetylation within the AR 5'UTR region and looping between sequences in intron 2 and the transcription start site (TSS). This novel pathway controlling AR expression in response to hormone stimulation may have important implications for understanding cell or tissue selective receptor signalling.