Glucocorticoid Receptor and Hormonal Extragenomic Effects

Abstract

The problem of hormonal regulation of gene expression and cell integrated functioning is one of the most challenging problems of today’s molecular biology. The mechanism(s) of steroid action in specific target cells is today the subject of intensive research. However, despite some recent progress, understanding of the precise molecular mechanism(s) of steroid hormone action has still remained a puzzle. The crucial problem in the mechanism of steroid hormone action is the structure and function of the hormone recognizing receptor. Little is known about molecular organization of the native steroid hormone receptor system. The major obstacles disregarded in the study of steroid hormone receptors until now are the following: firstly, steroid hormone receptors undergo complicated association and dissociation with endogenous protein factors (inhibitors or activators) (1), or with RNA (2), appropriate understanding of which is an important basis of the study of receptor phenomena; secondly, steroid hormone binding subunits of receptors are associated with hormone nonbinding proteins whose role in the receptor function is not yet elucidated (3). The study on the molecular organization of the glucocorticoid receptor system was in our laboratory undertaken by taking into consideration these facts.