Interactions fonctionnelles entre voies signalétiques intrinsèques et voie des hormones thyroïdiennes dans les cellules souches et progéniteurs de l'épithélium intestinal

Abstract

Thyroid hormones (THs) control several aspects of gut development and homeostasis. They act through the thyroid hormone nuclear receptors (TRs) that are T3-modulated transcription factors. The paradigm is the amphibian metamorphosis, where they are responsible for gut remodeling and emergence of the stem cells (Ishizuya-Oka et al, 2009). In previous studies we showed that THs play a fundamental role in regulating the balance between cell proliferation and cell differentiation of the murine intestinal epithelial precursors. From a molecular point of view the nuclear receptor TRα1 controls several proliferation/cell-cycle genes as well as the Wnt and Notch pathways (rev. in Sirakov et al, 2104; Skah et al, 2017). In accordance with these functions, targeted expression of TRα1 in the intestinal epithelium (vil-TRα1 mice) is sufficient to induce aberrant and hyper-proliferative crypts and confers increased susceptibility to Apc-mutation dependent intestinal tumorigenic program (vil-TRα1/Apc+/1638N mice) (Kress et al, 2010). The aim of my work was to study TH- and TRα1-dependent control of intestinal stem cells. Indeed, I used the Lgr5-EGFP-ires-CreERT2 mice enable tracking, sorting and targeting the stem cells (Barker et al, 2007) crossed with tamoxifen inducible TRα1 loss-of-function (Quignodon et al, 2007) mouse model (TRα1-LOF). I studied the effect of TH/TRα1 alteration in vivo and in intestinal organoids (ex vivo). In conclusion, our results indicate that HTs and modulating TRα1 expression or activity have a rapid and strong effect on the intestinal stem cells. This work opens a new perspective in the study of TH/TRα1-dependent signal on the physiopathology of the intestinal stem cells