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Science 301 (5640): 1714-1717

Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Resurrecting the Ancestral Steroid Receptor: Ancient Origin of Estrogen Signaling

Joseph W. Thornton,1* Eleanor Need,1 David Crews2

Abstract: Receptors for sex and adrenal steroid hormones are absent from fully sequenced invertebrate genomes and have not been recovered from other invertebrates. Here we report the isolation of an estrogen receptor ortholog from the mollusk Aplysia californica and the reconstruction, synthesis, and experimental characterization of functional domains of the ancestral protein from which all extant steroid receptors (SRs) evolved. Our findings indicate that SRs are extremely ancient and widespread, having diversified from a primordial gene before the origin of bilaterally symmetric animals, and that this ancient receptor had estrogen receptor–like functionality. This gene was lost in the lineage leading to arthropods and nematodes and became independent of hormone regulation in the Aplysia lineage.

1 Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
2 Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: joet{at}uoregon.edu

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