Transcriptional activities of estrogen receptor alpha and beta in yeast properties of raloxifene.

Raloxifene represents a potent compound for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women. Raloxifene exhibits targeted antiestrogenicity in breast and uterus, but acts as an agonist in bone and liver. This synthetic selective estrogen receptor modulator binds both estrogen receptors alpha and beta. The molecular mechanisms by which raloxifene exerts agonistic or antagonistic activity are still not resolved. Therefore, the binding behavior of raloxifene to estrogen receptors and its effects on DNA binding and transactivation were studied. The equilibrium binding affinity of raloxifene by displacing radiolabeled 17beta-estradiol exhibited a similar affinity behavior to that of its natural ligand. Using BIACORE technology with an immobilized estrogen response element, we showed that 17beta-estradiol and raloxifene increased the binding of estrogen receptor alpha to the DNA, suggesting a ligand-dependent dimerization. The influence of the ligands to the binding of estrogen receptor beta was lower. We may conclude that unliganded estrogen receptor alpha binds as a monomer whereas in the presence of 10(-8) M 17beta-estradiol or higher, homodimers are formed that interact with the estrogen response element. Transactivation studies in a yeast reporter system in a ligand-dependent manner resulted in a similar potency of raloxifene to estrogen receptor beta compared to the control testosterone. Subeffective doses of raloxifene combined with 17beta-estradiol did not shift the efficiency, whereas saturating concentrations of 17beta-estradiol combined with increasing concentrations of raloxifene altered the response induced by 17beta-estradiol. In this pure system, the antagonistic activity of raloxifene could not be detected as was expected by the results from ligand competition analysis.