Dimerization of nuclear receptors.

Multicellular organisms require specific intercellular communication to properly organize the complex body plan during embryogenesis and maintain its properties and functions during the entire life. While growth factors, neurotransmitters, and peptide hormones bind to membrane receptors, thereby inducing the activity of intracellular kinase cascades or the JAK-STAT signaling pathways, other small signaling compounds such as steroid hormones, certain vitamins, and metabolic intermediates enter, or are generated, within the target cells and bind to members of a large family of nuclear receptors (NRs). NRs are ligand-inducible transcription factors that control a plethora of biological phenomena, thus orchestrating complex events like development, organ homeostasis, immune function, and reproduction. NR-NR interactions are of major importance in these regulatory processes, as NRs regulate their target genes by binding to cognate DNA response elements essentially as homo- or heterodimers. A number of structural and functional studies have provided significant insights as to how combinatorial NRs rely on protein-protein contacts that discriminate geometric features of their DNA response elements, thereby allowing both binding site diversity and physiological specificity. Here, we will review our current understanding of NR-NR interactions and provide protocols for a number of experimental approaches that are useful for their study.