The thyroid hormones and their nuclear receptors in the gut: From developmental biology to cancer

The thyroid hormones control the development and the homeostasis of several organs in vertebrates. Their actions depend, for the most part, on nuclear receptors, the TRs, which are transcription factors whose activity is modulated by the hormone T3. The gastrointestinal tract is a well characterized target of thyroid hormones and TRs, as extensively described in the literature. In fact, its remodeling in amphibians during thyroid hormone-dependent metamorphosis is well characterized at the cellular and the molecular levels. However, whereas a great attention has been paid to the nervous system and to cardiac development and physiology, the function of thyroid hormones and TRs in the mammalian gastrointestinal tract has been, until recently, underestimated. Several studies have described an important conservation of this hormonal signal during intestinal development and have suggested that it may play a role in stem cell physiology in both amphibians and mammals. These findings show the importance of the thyroid hormones and TRs, whose homologous actions are maintained across species. In the present review, we summarize the most recent data on this issue, starting from work that has been conducted on amphibian metamorphosis to results on postnatal development, homeostasis, and tumorigenesis in mammals. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Translating nuclear receptors from health to disease.

Research Highlights
► The intestine is an organ target of the thyroid hormone and its nuclear receptor TRα1.
► This hormone controls gut progenitor proliferation in both amphibians and mammals.
► The gut-specific over-activation of this signal in the mouse results in tumor induction.
► New data also describe their involvement in gut epithelial stem cell physiology.