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COUP-TFII Controls Mouse Pancreatic β-Cell Mass through GLP-1-β-Catenin Signaling Pathways

2012; Public Library of Science; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1371/journal.pone.0030847

1932-6203

Marie Boutant, Oscar Henrique Pereira Ramos, Cécile Tourrel‐Cuzin, Jamileh Movassat, Anissa Ilias, David Vallois, Julien Planchais, Jean‐Paul Pégorier, Frans Schuit, Patrice X. Petit, Pascale Bossard, Kathrin Maedler, Anne Grapin‐Botton, Mireille Vasseur-Cognet,

Diet, Metabolism, and Disease

Background The control of the functional pancreatic β-cell mass serves the key homeostatic function of releasing the right amount of insulin to keep blood sugar in the normal range. It is not fully understood though how β-cell mass is determined. Methodology/Principal Findings Conditional chicken ovalbumin upstream promoter transcription factor II (COUP-TFII)-deficient mice were generated and crossed with mice expressing Cre under the control of pancreatic duodenal homeobox 1 (pdx1) gene promoter. Ablation of COUP-TFII in pancreas resulted in glucose intolerance. Beta-cell number was reduced at 1 day and 3 weeks postnatal. Together with a reduced number of insulin-containing cells in the ductal epithelium and normal β-cell proliferation and apoptosis, this suggests decreased β-cell differentiation in the neonatal period. By testing islets isolated from these mice and cultured β-cells with loss and gain of COUP-TFII function, we found that COUP-TFII induces the expression of the β-catenin gene and its target genes such as cyclin D1 and axin 2. Moreover, induction of these genes by glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) via β-catenin was impaired in absence of COUP-TFII. The expression of two other target genes of GLP-1 signaling, GLP-1R and PDX-1 was significantly lower in mutant islets compared to control islets, possibly contributing to reduced β-cell mass. Finally, we demonstrated that COUP-TFII expression was activated by the Wnt signaling-associated transcription factor TCF7L2 (T-cell factor 7-like 2) in human islets and rat β-cells providing a feedback loop. Conclusions/Significance Our findings show that COUP-TFII is a novel component of the GLP-1 signaling cascade that increases β-cell number during the neonatal period. COUP-TFII is required for GLP-1 activation of the β-catenin-dependent pathway and its expression is under the control of TCF7L2.