How sex hormone receptors and all the other members of the nuclear receptor superfamily do such a remarkable job has fascinated scientists for decades. A series of discoveries in the past few years has dramatically enlightened our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern nuclear receptor action. The elucidation of the 3D structures of several nuclear receptor ligand binding domains in the presence of agonists or antagonists has provided an allosteric concept of ligand action, and the discovery of a plethora of ligand-dependent protein interactions has linked this transconformation with the ability of nuclear receptors to act as transcriptional activators and repressors and the enzymatic modification of chromatin and factors of the basal transcriptional machinery.

1 Nuclear Receptors as Targets for Drug Design: New Options and Old Challenges.- 2 The Androgen Receptor Co-regulator, ARA70.- 3 Role of Coactivators in Transcriptional Activation by Estrogen Receptors.- 4 A Search for a Mechanism for the Antiinflammatory Action of Glucocorticoids.- 5 Activation of Progesterone and Androgen Receptors by Signal Transduction Pathways.- 6 Ligand-Independent Activation of the Estrogen Receptor: Activation by Epidermal Growth Factor and Dopamine.- 7 The ER/AP1 Pathway: A Window on the Cell-Specific Estrogen-like Effects of Antiestrogens.- 8 A Structural View of the Retinoid Nuclear Receptors.- 9 Characterization of Human Estrogen Receptorß.- 10 Functional and Pharmacological Analysis of the A and B Forms of the Human Progesterone Receptor.- 11 Oestrogen Receptor Expression Mutants and Variants in Tamoxifen-Resistant Breast Cancer.- 12 Structure and Expression of the Androgen Receptor in Prostate Cancer.- Previous Volumes Published in this Series.