Abstract
G-protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER) mediates non-genomic signaling of estrogenic events. Here we showed for the first time that Gper/GPER is expressed in Swiss 3T3 mouse embryo preadipocytes 3T3-L1, and that Gper/GPER is up-regulated during differentiation of the cells induced by monocyte differentiation-inducing (MDI) cocktail. Activation of GPER by the natural ligand 17β-estradiol (E2), and the specific agonist G1, was shown to inhibit lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells, while such inhibition was reversed upon knockdown of GPER using specific siRNA. GPER was also found to mediate perturbation of mitotic clonal expansion (MCE) in these cells by inhibiting cell cycle arrest during MDI cocktail-induced differentiation. Persistent activation of cell cycle regulating factors cyclin-dependant kinase (CDK) 4, CDK6 and cyclin D1, and phosphorylation of retinoblastoma (Rb) protein at serine 795 was observed in the G1-treated cells. Taken together, our results indicate that E2-GPER signaling leads to an inhibition of adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells via perturbation of MCE.