Deducing the temporal order of cofactor function in ligand-regulated gene transcription: theory and experimental verification

Cofactors are intimately involved in steroid-regulated gene expression. Two critical questions are (1) the steps at which cofactors exert their biological activities and (2) the nature of that activity. Here we show that a new mathematical theory of steroid hormone action can be used to deduce the kinetic properties and reaction sequence position for the functioning of any two cofactors relative to a concentration limiting step (CLS) and to each other. The predictions of the theory, which can be applied using graphical methods similar to those of enzyme kinetics, are validated by obtaining internally consistent data for pair-wise analyses of three cofactors (TIF2, sSMRT, and NCoR) in U2OS cells. The analysis of TIF2 and sSMRT actions on GR-induction of an endogenous gene gave results identical to those with an exogenous reporter. Thus new tools to determine previously unobtainable information about the nature and position of cofactor action in any process displaying first-order Hill plot kinetics are now available.