Human thyroid hormone beta 1 receptor produced by recombinant baculovirus-infected insect cells.

Thyroid hormone receptors are nuclear proteins which regulate transcription in a hormone dependent manner. The baculovirus expression system was used for the overexpression of the beta 1 isoform of the human thyroid hormone receptor. The baculovirus produced receptor binds tri-iodothyronine with high affinity, is specifically immunoprecipitated with a beta 1 specific antibody, and binds to DNA that contains a known thyroid hormone receptor recognition site. Large scale production and purification of baculovirus produced receptor will be useful for structure-function analyses and studies of transcriptional regulation.