Impaired Estrogen Sensitivity in Bone by Inhibiting Both Estrogen Receptor a and b Pathways*

Although it is well established that estrogen deficiencycauses osteoporosis among the postmenopausalwomen, the involvement of estrogen receptor (ER) in itspathogenesis still remains uncertain. In the presentstudy, we have generated rats harboring a dominantnegative ERa, which inhibits the actions of not only ERabut also recently identified ERb. Contrary to our expectation,the bone mineral density (BMD) of the resultingtransgenic female rats was maintained at the same levelwith that of the wild-type littermates when sham-operated.In addition, ovariectomy-induced bone loss wasobserved almost equally in both groups. Strikingly, however,the BMD of the transgenic female rats, after ovariectomized,remained decreased even if 17b-estradiol(E2) was administrated, whereas, in contrast, the decreaseof littermate BMD was completely prevented byE2. Moreover, bone histomorphometrical analysis ofovariectomized transgenic rats revealed that the higherrates of bone turnover still remained after treatmentwith E2. These results demonstrate that the preventionfrom the ovariectomy-induced bone loss by estrogen ismediated by ER pathways and that the maintenanceof BMD before ovariectomy might be compensatedby other mechanisms distinct from ERa and ERbpathways.