Phosphorylation of the nuclear receptor co-repressor 1 by protein kinase B (PKB/Akt) switches its co-repressor targets in the liver

The nuclear receptor corepressor 1 (NCoR1) is a transcriptional co-regulator that has wide-ranging effects on gene expression patterns. In the liver, NCoR1 represses lipid synthesis in the fasting state, whereas it inhibits the activation of PPARα upon feeding, thereby blunting ketogenesis. Here, we show that insulin via the activation of PKB/Akt induces the phosphorylation of NCoR1 on serine 1460, which selectively favors its interaction with PPARα and ERRα over LXRα. Phosphorylation of NCoR1 on S1460 selectively derepresses LXRα target genes, resulting in increased lipogenesis, while at the same time it inhibits PPARα and ERRα targets, thereby attenuating oxidative metabolism in the liver. The phosphorylation-gated differential recruitment of NCoR1 to different nuclear receptors explains the apparent paradox that liver-specific deletion of NCoR1 concurrently induces both lipogenesis and oxidative metabolism, due to a global derepression of LXRα, PPARα and ERRα activity. This phosphorylation-mediated recruitment switch of NCoR1 between nuclear receptor subsets hence provides a mechanism by which corepressors can selectively modulate liver energy metabolism during the fasting-feeding transition. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.