Estrogen signaling in arcuate Kiss1 neurons suppresses a sex-dependent female circuit promoting dense strong bones.

ABSTRACT: Central estrogen signaling coordinates energy expenditure, reproduction, and in concert with peripheral estrogen impacts skeletal homeostasis in females. Here, we ablate estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) in the medial basal hypothalamus and find a robust bone phenotype only in female mice that results in exceptionally strong trabecular and cortical bones, whose density surpasses other reported mouse models. Stereotaxic guided deletion of ERα in the arcuate nucleus increases bone mass in intact and ovariectomized females, confirming the central role of estrogen signaling in this sex-dependent bone phenotype. Loss of ERα in kisspeptin (Kiss1)-expressing cells is sufficient to recapitulate the bone phenotype, identifying Kiss1 neurons as a critical node in this powerful neuroskeletal circuit. We

SUBMITTER: Herber CB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6329772 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature