Investigation of steroid receptor function in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Steroid hormones are small lipophilic molecules that control a wide range o f responses in both the developing and adult organism. The actions of these molecules are mediated by soluble receptor proteins that function as hormo ne-activated transcription factors. The first steroid receptors were expres sed in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae over 10 years ago, and to date vir tually all the classical steroid receptors, together with a number of non-s teroid members of the nuclear receptor superfamily, have been expressed in yeast. The ability to reconstitute steroid receptor signalling in yeast cel ls by co-expression of the receptor protein and a reporter gene driven by t he appropriate hormone response element has presented researchers with a po werful model system for investigating receptor action. Tn this review, the use of yeast-based steroid receptor transactivation assays to investigate t he roles of molecular chaperones, the mechanisms of DNA binding and gene ac tivation, and the functional properties of hormone mimics will be discussed . (C) 1999 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.