DNA intersegment transfer, how steroid receptors search for a target site

The mammalian nucleus contains 6 billion base pairs of DNA, encoding about 100,000 genes, yet in a given cell steroid hormones induce only a handful of genes. The logistical difficulties faced by steroid receptors or other transcription factors of sorting through this much genetic information is further increased by the density of nuclear DNA (approximately 10-50 mg/ml). Standard models propose that steroid receptors find target elements by repeated cycles of dissociation and reassociation until a high affinity site is found (cycling model) and/or by conducting a one-dimensional search along the DNA (sliding model). A third model proposes that steroid receptors search for target sites in the genome by DNA intersegment transfer. In this model, receptor dimers bind nonspecific DNA sequences and search for a target site by binding a second strand of DNA before dissociating from the first, in effect moving through the genome like Tarzan swinging from vine to vine. This model has the advantage that a high concentration of DNA favors, rather than hinders, the search. The intersegment transfer model predicts, in contrast to the cycling and sliding models, that the dissociation rate of receptor from DNA is highly dependent on DNA concentration. We have employed the purified DNA binding domain fragment from the rat glucocorticoid receptor to perform equilibrium and kinetic studies of the DNA dependence of receptor-DNA dissociation. We find receptor dissociation from DNA to be highly dependent on the concentration of DNA in solution, in agreement with the intersegment transfer model. We also find that this interaction is primarily electrostatic, because DNA-like polyanion chains (e.g. heparin and polyglutamate) can mediate the transfer. These studies provide evidence that direct DNA transfer aids the target site search conducted by steroid receptors in their role as inducible transcription factors.