Genomic and Non-genomic Aldosterone

Steroid hormones are lipophilic hormones based on the cholesterol molecule. Steroid hormones include the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone; glucocorticoids mainly cortisol in human; and mineralocorticoids. The main mammalian mineralocorticoid is aldosterone. Steroid and steroid-like hormones such as vitamin D and thyroid hormone are lipophilic and exert their predominant actions by binding cytosolic receptors. Although aldosterone functional studies have dated back to the 1950s studies examining receptor signaling had largely lacked compared to the other steroid receptors. There has been a renewed interest in aldosterone signaling with the recent discoveries that much pathology are associated with alterations in aldosterone [1-7]. This renewed interest has resulted in several excellent review articles documenting genomic and non-genomic effects of aldosterone [3,4,8-16] to name a few. The purpose of this short-review is to highlight major advances in the understanding of mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) signaling through the classical genomic pathway and the rapid non-genomic signaling of the MR.