Glucocorticoid receptors in carrageenin-induced granuloma in rats: activation to dexamethasone-binding form by sulfhydryl compounds

Characteristics of glucocorticoid-binding by inflammatory tissue of rats

Glucocorticoid-binding activities of the granuloma cytosol were compared with those of the liver cytosol and of the serum in vitro. The granuloma cytosol bound cortisol (HC) about 4-fold higher than dexamethasone (DX) and triamcinolone acetonide (TA); the liver cytosol bound these two synthetic agonists more than HC. The kinetic parameters of the glucocorticoid-binding components of the granuloma and the liver cytosols were studied by the Scatchard method. The binding components of the granuloma cytosol had a single class of binding sites with high affinity for these three steroids, whereas the binding site of the liver cytosol had negative cooperativity or consisted of two distinct classes, because its Scatchard plot showed a hyperbolic curve. The granuloma glucocorticoid-binding components will be protein since their binding was prevented by a trypsin treatment and completely lost by heating at 60 C for 5 min. Heating at 25 or 37 degrees C for 30 min did not affect the HC-binding activity of the granuloma cytosol, regardless of prelabeling with the steroid. The binding activity for DX and TA were heat-labile and completely lost by heating the cytosol at 37 degrees C for 30 min without the respective steroid. The results of thermal inactivation and ammonium sulfate fractionation show the granuloma HC-binding protein closely resembles corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG). From enzymatic determination of hemoglobin in tissue cytosols, attribution of the contaminating blood to the HC-binding activity of the cytosol is considered to be negligible.

Reaction of tyrosyl-modifying reagents with the ligand- and DNA-binding domains of the rabbit liver glucocorticoid receptor

We have studied the effects of p-nitrobenzenesulfonyl fluoride, 4-fluorosulfonyl-1-hydroxy-2-naphtoic acid, 7-chloro-4-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole and tetranitromethane on the glucocorticoid receptor from rabbit liver. Our results show that all tyrosine modifying reagents inhibit the binding of [3H]dexamethasone to the receptor. Equilibrium binding experiments revealed that only 4-fluorosulfonyl-1-hydroxy-2-naphtoic acid is a competitive inhibitor while the other chemical probes decrease the concentration of binding sites. Transformation of glucocorticoid-receptor complexes was markedly reduced when heat treatment was performed in the presence of tyrosyl-directed reagents. Taken together, these results indicate for the first time that critical tyrosyl moieties may be involved in both hormone binding and transformation of the glucocorticoid receptor.