Abstract
Glucocorticoid (GC) is one of the adrenal cortical hormones and it is a candidate as new medicine because it concerned with important metabolisms such as the glucose metabolism and/or the anti-inflammatory action in vertebrates through its binding to glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Development of the simple and low cost method to detect chemicals with GC activity is anticipated because primary screening of such chemicals is expensive step for drug discovery.
GC binding to a ligand-binding domain of GR alpha from human (hGRα-LBD) of the chimeric GR (effector 1) permits interaction with a nuclear receptor interaction domain of transcriptional intermediary factor 2 from human (hTIF2-NID) of the chimeric co-activator (effector 2) in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Through this interaction, the transcriptional activation signal of acidic transactivation domain of VP16 (VP16-AD) can stimulate transcription of reporter gene in Arabidopsis. The biosensor could detected GC activity efficiently and also detected its antagonist (mifepristone) activity.
