The steroid receptor superfamily--American Association for Cancer Research special conference. 8-12 January 1999, Indian Wells, California, USA.
The meeting dealt with transcriptional regulation by nuclear receptors, their role in development and animal physiology and their exploitation as targets for therapeutic intervention. The field is at a stage where it is possible to address many different issues relevant to hormone action, ranging from the structure of nuclear receptors to the biological roles of individual components and so, despite the number of meetings devoted to these topics, this AACR meeting was considered a great success. In addition, a number of other transcriptional systems in yeast and Drosophila, as well as in vertebrates, were presented, which illustrated the extent to which the transcription machinery is conserved throughout the animal kingdom. Thus, although yeast does not immediately strike one as being a particularly good model system for studying endocrinology, it does in fact rely on transcriptional apparatus that is remarkably similar to the mammalian counterpart. Nevertheless, while presentation of this basic research added to the interest of the meeting, this report will focus on receptors themselves and on topics with most relevance to clinical therapy.
Parker
M
M
Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Molecular Endocrinology Laboratory, 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PX, UK. m.parker@icrf.icnet.uk