A sex-steroid binding protein (SBP) that binds both testosterone and estradiol-17 beta was identified in the plasma and ovarian interstitial fluids of the spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus. Scatchard analysis revealed a single binding component with dissociation constants of 4.89 +/- 0.19 and 3.13 +/- 0.11 nM and binding capacities of 423 +/- 25 and 482 +/- 24 nM for testosterone and 17 bet...

A long-standing conundrum of glucocorticoid receptors has been why the steroid binding domain is active in hybrid proteins but not in isolation. For this reason, the precise boundaries of the steroid binding domain have not been defined. These questions have now been systematically examined with a variety of receptor deletion constructs. Plasmids encoding amino acids 537-673 and 537-795 of the ...

Antibodies against steroid hormones can be used to eliminate steroid binding to serum proteins and to cellular proteins which are normally not considered to be steroid receptors. Since binding of sex steroids and of some glucocorticoids to their cellular receptor proteins does not appear to be affected by the antibodies, the latter may be used for qualitative and quantitative characterization o...

As most metabolic studies are conducted in male animals, understanding the sex specificity of the underlying molecular pathways has been broadly neglected; for example, whether PPARs elicit sex-dependent responses has not been determined. Here we show that in mice, PPARalpha has broad female-dependent repressive actions on hepatic genes involved in steroid metabolism and immunity. In male mice,...

Biologically active steroids are transported in the blood by albumin, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), and corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG). These plasma proteins also regulate the non-protein-bound or 'free' fractions of circulating steroid hormones that are considered to be biologically active; as such, they can be viewed as the 'primary gatekeepers of steroid action'. Albumin binds ...

background: the purity and correct folding of a recombinant protein is critical for any structural, biochemical and vaccine design studies. plasmodium vivax duffy binding protein-ii is a leading vaccine candidate for vivax malaria. in the present study, the purification process of recombinant dbp-ix (a variant form of pvdbp-ii) was optimized to achieve the highest yield and purity. moreover, na...

The interaction of phytoestrogens with the most important binding sites of steroid hormones, i.e. sex hormone-binding globulin and estrogen receptors, was investigated. Relative binding affinities and association constants for 21 compounds among them isoflavones, flavones, flavonols, flavanones, chalcones and lignans were determined. The lignan nordihydroguaiaretic acid weakly displaced 17beta-...

The prostate develops in the urogenital sinus (UGS) under the influence of androgens. Whilst free androgens can enter the cell to activate the androgen receptor and induce prostate development, approximately 98.5% of androgens in plasma are bound to binding proteins such as sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). There is increasing evidence that an alternative pathway for androgens to enter targe...