Estrogen receptor-related receptor α (ERRα) regulates osteopontin expression through a non-canonical ERRα response element in a cell context-dependent manner

We previously demonstrated that the orphan nuclear receptor, estrogen receptor-related receptor α (ERRα) is highly expressed in osteoblasts and osteoclasts, regulates osteogenesis and expression of osteoblast-associated markers in the rat calvaria cell differentiation system, and is dysregulated in the rat ovariectomy model of postmenopausal osteoporosis. There are conflicting published data on the transcriptional regulation by ERRα of the gene for osteopontin (OPN), an extracellular matrix protein required in bone remodeling, and a potential direct target mediating ERRα effects in bone. We therefore readdressed OPN gene regulation by ERRα in both osteoblastic (rat osteosarcoma ROS17/2.8 cells) and non-osteoblastic (HeLa) cell lines using a mouse proximal 2 kb OPN promoter fragment. A minimal OPN promoter fragment spanning from −56 to +9 bp is activated in HeLa cells but repressed it in ROS17/2.8 cells. Adenine scanning mutagenesis revealed the presence of a non-canonical ERRα response element in this minimal promoter. Surprisingly, prototypical inactivating mutations in the activation function 2 (AF2) domain or a naturally occurring allelic variant of ERRα (ERRαH408) were all better activators than wild-type ERRα in HeLa cells, activities that were generally paralleled by repression in ROS17/2.8 cells. Finally, we found that the N-terminus of ERRα harbors a repressor domain that acts in a cell context-dependent manner. We conclude that OPN is an ERRα target gene whose promoter is regulated by ERRα in a cell context-dependent manner and that a predicted silencing mutation in AF2 or a more flexible helix 12 increases ERRα transcriptional activity, effects with implications for ERRα as a therapeutic target in bone.