[Studies on progesterone receptor in rabbit uterine cytosol -- nuclear translocation and chromatin binding--...

Estrogen priming increases uterine 8S macromolecule which binds progesterone specifically. Progesterone-8S complex in the cytoplasm enters into nucleus and is bound to chromatin finally. In this paper, the mode of nuclear translocation of steroid in exchange assay of receptor introduced by Anderson et al., and the mode of binding to chromatin were studied on the progesterone-receptor complex in the uterus of estrogen primed female rabbit. 1. After intravenous administration of 200 mug progesterone into the estrogen primed immature rabbit, uterine nuclei were prepared by the method in Table 1. These nuclei were incubated with 3H-progesterone and cold steroids at 4 degrees C for 30 minutes, and then washed with buffer A. The radioactivity of the nuclei was counted. This experiment was performed at 4 degrees C because progesterone receptor and chromatin were observed to be degraded at 37 degrees C for 20 minutes. The effect of cold steroids in vitro on the incorporation of 3H-progesterone into the uterine nuclei of rabbit pretreated with progesterone was found to be similar to their effect on progesterone-receptor binding in cytosol or chromatin (Fig. 1). 2. The effect of cold steroids on 3H-progesterone-receptor-chromatin triplex (Table 2 and Fig. 2) was examined. Once 3H-progesterone-receptor-chromatin triplex was formed, it was difficult to exchange 3H-progesterone to other steroids at 4 degrees C. These results (1 & 2) indicate that progesterone-receptor complex enters into nucleus and is bound to chromatin. Exchange of steroid may occur in the nuclear progesterone-receptor complex, which is free from the binding with chromatin. And thus exchange assay cannot represent quantitative data on receptor content. 3. 3H-progesterone-8S or 5S complexes were obtained by 5 approximately 20% sucrose linear gradient centrifugation (Fig. 3). The same molar concentration of these complexes from estrogen primed or castrated rabbit uterus were incubated with primed uterine chromatin for 30 minutes. Then the chromatin was washed with buffer A and the radioactivity was counted. It was shown in Fig. 4 that 3H-progesterone-8S complex was bound to chromatin much more tightly than 3H-progesterone 5-S complex in preparations obtained from both castrated or primed uterine cytosols. All these results indicate that 8S may be the biologically active form of the receptor. 4.3H-progesterone uptake into uterine nuclei was observed in very limited amount following the injection into uterine artery. The radioactivity in nuclei decreased easily by washing with buffer A as in Fig. 5. The small amount of residual radioactivity after washing, that is, very limited number of binding sites with high affinity is considered to be indicative of biologically active binding.