Virtuelle (Nano) Welten PDB Molecule of the Month 92: Anabolic Steroids

Exploring the Structure

Once testosterone gets into cells, it binds to the androgen receptor and modifies the expression of many anabolic and androgenic genes. The androgen receptor is very similar to the estrogen receptor, with a domain that binds to the proper sequences of DNA and a domain that binds to testosterone. Because the molecule is rather flexible, these two domains have been studied separately by X-ray crystallography. You can look at the DNA binding domain in entry 1r4i--it is not pictured here. Two structures of the testosterone-binding domain are shown here: on the left (PDB entry 2am9) is one bound to testosterone and on the right (PDB entry 2amb) is a structure bound to a synthetic designer steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). THG is the "undetectable" anabolic steroid uncovered in the 2003 BALCO doping scandal.

These pictures were created with RasMol. You can create similar pictures by clicking on the accession codes here and picking one of the options under Images and Visualization. To see some of the references that I used to write this Molecule of the Month, click here. Also available are related entries in the PDB as determined by a keyword search on August 7, 2007 for 'Anabolic Steroids'.

Next: Jmol Animation
Previous: Supplementing Performance