Historical Background
Located on chromosome 4q31.1 in humans, the gene NR3C2 encodes the mineralocorticoid receptor (Fan et al. 1989; Morrison et al. 1990). It has 5201 bp, an exon count of 12, and is located on chromosome 8 in mice, 19 in rats, 1 in zebra fish, and 4 in chickens. Mineralocorticoids (MRs) belong to the nuclear receptor subfamily 3 and are distributed throughout the epithelia of the kidneys, sweat glands, and colon and the nonepithelial tissues of the heart and brain. The human MR was first cloned in 1987, consists of 984 amino acids, and is similar in structure to the glucocorticoid receptor, sharing 94% identity in the DNA-binding domain (Funder 1997).
It is unique among steroid receptors in that it plays signaling roles in both mineralocorticoids (e.g., aldosterone and deoxycorticosterone) and the glucocorticoids (cortisol in humans, corticosterone in rats). In particular, both...
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Jacques, A., Johnson, L.R., Battle, A.R. (2018). Mineralocorticoid Receptor. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_101537
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