Up and Down of Hedgehog Signaling leads to Down and Up of Steroidogenesis in the Liver

The liver is one of the largest organs in our organism with multiple anabolic and catabolic functions which can be carried out simultaneously only by zonation. Recent studies showed that the morphogenic signaling pathway Hedgehog, commonly associated with embryogenesis, development processes and cancer, is active in adult hepatocytes and act as master regulator of zonation in the adult liver (Gebhardt & Matz-Soja, WJG, 2014). Our goal is the investigation of the gender dimorphism of gene regulation in the liver. Thereby we surprisingly found a regulation of steroidogenesis associated genes in hepatocytes of transgenic mice with aberrant Hedgehog signaling; yet it was assumed that steroidogenesis occurs in the liver only during embryogenesis and is down-regulated afterwards.