Inflammation and sex steroid receptors: a motif for change.

Homeostasis in reproductive tissues requires integration of hormonal and inflammatory signals. In this issue of Cell, Zhu et al. (2006) discover that proinflammatory signals switch repressed steroid hormone receptors into transcriptional activators by targeting TAB2, an adaptor protein that tethers corepressors. These findings have implications for the treatment of endocrine-resistant cancers.