Binding of steroids to the progestin and glucocorticoid receptors analyzed by correspondence analysis

The relative binding affinities of over 30 steroids have been measured for the cytosol glucocorticoid receptor (GR) of thymus, liver, and hepatoma tissue culture cells and for progestin, androgen, and mineralocorticoid receptors. The data have been analyzed by correspondence analysis to reveal the singularities among the receptors of different hormonal classes, the similarities in GR of different origins, and the different specificities of the ligands. Additional data on new steroids have been injected into the system as well as results on a further parameter, namely the induction of tyrosine aminotransferase (TAT) activity, to illustrate the power and flexibility of the methodology. The analysis has confirmed previous correlations between GR binding and TAT response but also highlighted the antiglucocorticoid activity of progestins. This method should prove to be a substantial aid to the interpretation of increasingly complex data, in particular with regard to the action of existing and newly synthesized steroids on glucocorticoid systems of differential sensitivity.