Steroid Receptor Coactivator-2 Drives Epithelial Reprogramming That Enables Murine Embryo Implantation

Authors

Vineet K Maurya
Maria M Szwarc
David M Lonard
Ramakrishna Kommagani
San Pin Wu
Bert W O'Malley
Francesco J DeMayo
John P Lydon

Publication Date

12-1-2023

Journal

The FASEB Journal

DOI

10.1096/fj.202301581R

PMID

37962238

PMCID

PMC10655894

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

12-1-2024

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Author MSS

Published Open-Access

yes

Keywords

Animals, Female, Humans, Mice, Pregnancy, Embryo Implantation, Endometrium, Epithelial Cells, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, Mice, Knockout, Nuclear Receptor Coactivator 2, Uterus, Steroid receptor coactivator-2, mouse, endometrium, implantation, epithelium, Steroid receptor coactivator-2, mouse, endometrium, implantation, epithelium, transcriptome

Abstract

Although we have shown that steroid receptor coactivator-2 (SRC-2), a member of the p160/SRC family of transcriptional coregulators, is essential for decidualization of both human and murine endometrial stromal cells, SRC-2’s role in the earlier stages of the implantation process have not been adequately addressed. Using a conditional SRC-2 knockout mouse (SRC-2 ^d/d) in timed natural pregnancy studies, we show that endometrial SRC-2 is required for embryo attachment and adherence to the luminal epithelium. Implantation failure is associated with the persistent expression of Mucin 1 and E-cadherin on the apical surface and basolateral adherens junctions of the SRC-2 ^d/d luminal epithelium respectively. These findings indicate that the SRC-2 ^d/d luminal epithelium fails to exhibit a plasma membrane transformation (PMT) state known to be required for the development of uterine receptivity. Transcriptomics demonstrated that the expression of genes involved in steroid hormone control of uterine receptivity were significantly disrupted in the SRC-2 ^d/d endometrium as well as genes that control epithelial tight junctional biology and the emergence of the epithelial mesenchymal transition state, with the latter sharing similar biological properties with PMT. Collectively, these findings uncover a new role for endometrial SRC-2 in the induction of the luminal epithelial PMT state, which is a prerequisite for the development of uterine receptivity and early pregnancy establishment.

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