Evolution of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-type 1 and 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-type 3

A key regulator of glucocorticoid action is 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-type 1 (11β-HSD1), which catalyzes the conversion of cortisone to cortisol, the biologically active glucocorticoid. 11β-HSD1 is a paralog of 11β-HSD3, whose physiological function remains unclear. As reported here, 11β-HSD3 has orthologs in sea urchin, amphioxus and Ciona, while 11β-HSD1 first appears in sharks. Thus, 11β-HSD3 arose before the evolution of glucocorticoid signaling, suggesting different ancestral function(s) for 11β-HSD3. Four perplexing findings arise from this evolutionary analysis: (1) 11β-HSD1 is not present in a ray-finned fish genome, (2) zebrafish and fathead minnow contain two isoforms of 11β-HSD3; (3) neither rat nor mouse contain 11β-HSD3 and (4) amphioxus contains 16 11β-HSD3 paralogs.