Estrogen and testosterone secretion from the mouse brain

• Published in: Steroids 2024-04, Vol.204, p.109398-109398, Article 109398
• Main Authors: Vajaria, Ruby, Davis, DeAsia, Thaweepanyaporn, Kongkidakorn, Dovey, Janine, Nasuto, Slawomir, Delivopoulos, Evangelos, Tamagnini, Francesco, Knight, Philip, Vasudevan, Nandini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acute slice; Animals; Estradiol; Estradiol - metabolism; Estrogens - metabolism; Hippocampus - metabolism; Hypothalamus; Long-Term Potentiation - physiology; Mice; Neurosteroid; Steroids - metabolism; Testosterone; Testosterone - metabolism
• ISSN: 0039-128X; 1878-5867
• DOI: 10.1016/j.steroids.2024.109398

•Acute slices can be used to study secretion of analytes, including steroids.•Coronal slices of the hypothalamus and medial prefrontal cortex secrete steroids over 24 h.•Estrogen levels are higher than testosterone in these slices.•Slices from the adult male mouse show greater secretion of estrogen and testosterone than slices from pubertal animals. Estrogen and testosterone are typically thought of as gonadal or adrenal derived steroids that cross the blood brain barrier to signal via both rapid nongenomic and slower genomic signalling pathways. Estrogen and testosterone signalling has been shown to drive interlinked behaviours such as social behaviours and cognition by binding to their cognate receptors in hypothalamic and forebrain nuclei. So far, acute brain slices have been used to study short-term actions of 17β-estradiol, typically using electrophysiological measures. For example, these techniques have been used to investigate, nongenomic signalling by estrogen such as the estrogen modulation of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus. Using a modified method that preserves the slice architecture, we show, for the first time, that acute coronal slices from the prefrontal cortex and from the hypothalamus maintained in aCSF over longer periods i.e. 24 h can be steroidogenic, increasing their secretion of testosterone and estrogen. We also show that the hypothalamic nuclei produce more estrogen and testosterone than the prefrontal cortex. Therefore, this extended acute slice system can be used to study the regulation of steroid production and secretion by discrete nuclei in the brain.