Figure 2: Heuristic, simplified representation of the glucocorticoid signaling system (A) Nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of the glucocorticoid receptor. Upon binding to the ligand, the activated hGR dissociates from heat shock proteins (HSPs) and translocates into the nucleus, where it homodimerizes and binds to glucocorticoid response elements (GREs) in the promoter region of target genes or interacts with other transcription factors (TFs), such as activator protein-1 (AP-1), nuclear factor-  B (NF-  B) and signal transducer and activator of transcription-5 (STAT5), ultimately modulating the transcriptional activity of respectively GRE- or TFRE-containing genes.