Presence of steroid receptors in human soft tissue sarcomas of diverse histological origin.

The incidence of cytosol receptors for androgen, estrogen, glucocorticoid, and progesterone was determined in a series of histologically diverse soft tissue sarcomas. Receptor binding was characterized in tumor specimens from 29 adult patients (14 female, 15 male) obtained during surgery. Nineteen (66%) tumor cytosols bound at least one steroid. Seven (24%) had more than one receptor. Ten of 23 (43%) cytosols assayed for androgen binding were positive (Kd 0.97 +/- 0.23 X 10(-9) M; 60.6 +/- 25.9 fmol/mg protein), 7 of 29 (24%) for estrogen (Kd 1.00 +/- 0.19 X 10(-9) M; 33.2 +/- 10.9 fmol/mg protein), 9 of 26 (35%) bound glucocorticoid (Kd 4.22 +/- 1.77 X 10(-9) M; 231.0 +/- 155.0 fmol/mg protein), and 1 of 28 (4%) bound progesterone (Kd 0.41 X 10(-9) M; 18.7 fmol/mg protein). Density gradient analysis suggested that androgen and estrogen binding was located predominantly in the 6S and 7 to 8S regions, respectively, whereas receptor for glucocorticoid sedimented at 8S. Steroid binding was not related to patient age. Estrogen-positive (71%) and glucocorticoid-positive (78%) cytosols appeared predominantly in tumors from female patients. Receptor distribution also appeared to be correlated to tumor histogenetic origin.