A suppressor locus for MODY3-diabetes.

Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young type 3 (MODY3), linked to mutations in the transcription factor HNF1A, is the most prevalent form of monogenic diabetes mellitus. HNF1alpha-deficiency leads to defective insulin secretion via a molecular mechanism that is still not completely understood. Moreover, in MODY3 patients the severity of insulin secretion can be extremely variable even in the same kindred, indicating that modifier genes may control the onset of the disease.

The class II histone deacetylase HDAC4 regulates cognitive, metabolic and endocrine functions through its expression in osteoblasts.

Objective: The recently described endocrine functions of osteoblasts raise questions about their transcriptional regulation. Thus far, this aspect of osteoblast biology has been addressed only by examining the role of transcription factors binding to specific cis-acting elements in the promoter of the Osteocalcin gene.

Methods: In contrast, the role of chromatin remodeling enzymes, such as histone deacetylases (HDACs), in this process has not as yet been thoroughly understood.

HDAC4 integrates PTH and sympathetic signaling in osteoblasts.

Parathyroid hormone (PTH) and the sympathetic tone promote Rankl expression in osteoblasts and osteoclast differentiation by enhancing cyclic adenosine monophosphate production through an unidentified transcription factor for PTH and through ATF4 for the sympathetic tone. How two extracellular cues using the same second messenger in the same cell elicit different transcriptional events is unknown. In this paper, we show that PTH favors Rankl expression by triggering the ubiquitination of HDAC4, a class II histone deacetylase, via Smurf2.