The Mammalian Progesterone Receptor: Cloning, Immunolocalization and Mechanism of Interaction with DNA

Steroid hormone receptors have two essential functions: hormone binding, then DNA binding and transcription modulation. Although these two properties have been thoroughly characterized (review in 1), their structural basis has been only recently unraveled. The obtention of monoclonal antibodies against purified receptor and the subsequent cloning of receptor cDNA has been the key to the recent progress in the case of the progesterone receptor (2) as well as other steroid receptors (3–5).