Estrogen receptor interactions. Estrogenic hormones effect transformation of specific receptor proteins to a biochemical functional form

In this influential paper, Jensen and DeSombre summarized their early findings on the interactions of estrogenic hormones with the estrogen receptor protein to whose identification they had contributed so significantly. Their work pointed out critical structure-activity relationships between estrogenic hormones and binding to the receptor and their studies characterize a series of steps that hormone receptors undergo following initial ligand binding. Their studies showed that these transformation and activation steps altered nuclear affinity of the receptor and led to interactions with nuclear components that changed RNA transcription.