PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Schwabe, John W. R.
AU  - Teichmann, Sarah A.
TI  - Nuclear Receptors: The Evolution of Diversity
AID  - 10.1126/stke.2172004pe4
DP  - 2004 Jan 27
TA  - Science's STKE
PG  - pe4--pe4
VI  - 2004
IP  - 217
4099  - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2004/217/pe4.short
4100  - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2004/217/pe4.full
SO  - Sci. STKE2004 Jan 27; 2004
AB  - Nuclear receptors are an ancient family of transcription factors. Some receptors are regulated by small lipophilic ligands, whereas others are constitutive transcriptional activators or repressors. The evolution of this diversity is poorly understood, and it remains an open question as to whether or not the ancestral receptor was ligand-regulated. The recent cloning, from a snail, of an estrogen receptor that does not bind estrogen not only suggests that the steroid receptors are much more ancient than previous thought, but also points toward a mechanism through which nuclear receptors can lose the ability to be ligand regulated.