Hydrocortisone-induced enhancement of expression and changes in methylation of pepsinogen genes in stomach mucosa of the developing rat.

Administration of hydrocortisone to infant rats caused a precocious increase in levels of mucosal pepsinogen and its mRNA together with morphological maturation of pepsinogen-producing cells. The increase in levels of pepsinogen mRNA was induced rapidly and was associated with increase in levels of its precursors, suggesting transcriptional regulation of pepsinogen genes by hydrocortisone. Methylation analysis with the methylation-sensitive restriction enzymes, HpaII and HhaI, revealed that hydrocortisone also induced sequential demethylation changes of CCGG and GCGC sites in and around pepsinogen genes. Most of these changes occurred after increases in transcription of the genes and did not appear to play a causal role in gene activation. Superficially, the observed demethylations corresponded to the sequential processes of morphological maturation of pepsinogen-producing cells. Thus, these changes in methylation are probably linked to hydrocortisone-induced differentiation of pepsinogen-producing cells and may reflect the mechanism in vivo for the maturation of pepsinogen genes.