Patent ID: 7189510

Claim:
A method of determining whether a test compound has agonist activity for a member of the steroid/thyroid superfamily of receptors, said method comprising: (a) culturing cells transformed with a vector for the expression of an indicator protein, in the presence of a member of the steroid/thyroid superfamily of receptors, and in the presence and absence of said test compound, wherein said vector comprises a substantially pure DNA response element operatively linked to a promoter which is not normally subject to transcriptional activation and/or repression by ligand for said member of the steroid/thyroid superfamily and linked operatively for transcription of a gene encoding said indicator protein, so as to confer transcriptional activation and/or repression activity on said promoter in the presence of a compound having agonist activity, wherein said DNA response element comprises at least two half sites, each separated by three, four, or five spacer nucleotides, wherein each half site is independently selected from -AGGTCA-, -GGGTTA-, -GGGTGA-, -AGGTGA-, -AGGACA-, -GGGGCA-, or -GGGTCA-, -AGGTCC-, -GGTTCA-, -AGTTCA-, or -AGGGCA-; wherein said three spacer nucleotides are selected from -AGG-, -ATG-, -ACG-, or -CGA-; and thereafter (b) comparing the amount of said indicator protein expressed in the presence of said test compound to the amount of said indicator protein expressed in the absence of said test compound.