Trehalose induces functionally active conformation in the intrinsically disordered N-terminal domain of glucocorticoid receptor.

Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a classic member of the nuclear receptor superfamily and plays pivotal roles in human physiology at the level of gene regulation. Various constellations of cellular cofactors are required to associate with GR to activate/repress genes. The effects of specific ligands on the AF2 structure and consequent preferential binding of co-activators or co-repressors have helped our understanding of the mechanisms involved. But the data so far fall short of fully explaining GR actions. We believe that this is because work so far has largely avoided detailed examination of the contributions of AF1 to overall GR actions. It has been shown that the GR containing only the N-terminal domain (NTD) and the DNA-binding domain (GR500) is constitutively quite active in stimulating transcription from simple promoters. However, we are only beginning to understand structure and functions of GR500 in spite of the fact that AF1 located within the NTD serves as major transactivation domain for GR. Lack of this information has hampered our complete understanding of how GR regulates its target gene(s). The major obstacle in determining GR500 structure has been due to its intrinsically disordered NTD conformation, frequently found in transcription factors. In this study, we tested whether a naturally occurring osmolyte, trehalose, can promote functionally ordered conformation in GR500. Our data show that in the presence of trehalose, GR500 is capable of formation of a native-like functionally folded conformation.