Glucocorticoid Receptor

The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) (its gene name is “nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1: NR3C1”) is an evolutionally conserved ligand-inducible transcription factor belonging to the nuclear receptor superfamily that mediates the diverse physiologic effects of glucocorticoids, such as, metabolism, development, and reproduction. There are two major GR isoforms that differ only in their C-terminal regions, GRα and GRβ. In the absence of ligand, GR resides predominantly in the cytoplasm in a complex with chaperone proteins. Upon ligand binding, the GR complex changes its conformation and travels to the nucleus, where its DNA binding domain (DBD) recognizes and binds to specific GR DNA binding sequences (GBSs) or inverted repeat GBSs (IR-GBSs). A GBS or IR-GBS can modulate expression of nearby genes by transactivation or transrepression, respectively.