Receptors bound to antiprogestin from abortive complexes with hormone responsive elements.

The mechanism of action of antisteroids is not understood and explanations of their antagonistic activity have been sought at all levels of hormone action. It has been proposed that antisteroids, after binding to receptor, trap it into a non-activated (non DNA-binding) form possibly through interaction with a heat-shock protein of relative molecular mass (Mr) 90,000 (90 K), or that the antisteroids provoke binding of receptor to nonspecific DNA sites but not to hormone responsive elements (HREs), or that the antisteroid-receptor complexes can bind to HREs but form abortive complexes that fail to regulate transcription. We have constructed a deleted cDNA encoding a mutant form of rabbit progesterone receptor which exhibits constitutive activity, that is, binds to HREs in the absence of hormone and thus bypasses the first two steps discussed above. Co-transfection experiments allowed the expression of both constitutive and wild-type receptors in the same recipient cells. Antiprogestin RU486-wild-type receptor complexes completely suppressed the activity of the constitutive receptor on a reporter gene, showing that the inhibition is at the level of their common responsive elements.