Profiling of anthocyanidins against transcriptional activities of steroid and nuclear receptors

The aim of current study was to evaluate the effect of the most common anthocyanidins (cyanidin, delphinidin, malvidin, pelargonidin, and peonidin) on the transcriptional activity of steroid and nuclear receptors. The activities of steroid receptors - progesterone receptor (PR), estrogen receptor (ER), androgen receptor (AR), glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and nuclear receptors - vitamin D receptor (VDR), retinoid X receptor (RXR), retinoic acid receptor (RAR), pregnane X receptor (PXR), and thyroid receptor (TR) were assessed using either stable transfected luciferase gene reporter cell lines or transiently transfected cell lines. The cytotoxicity assays and gene reporter assays were performed after the 24-h treatment of cells with increasing range of concentrations (10 nM to 50 mu M) of selected anthocyanidins. The results of experiments indicate that none of the examined anthocyanidins in all tested concentrations caused remarkable changes of transcriptional activity of studied steroid receptors, but their increasing concentrations slightly inhibited transcriptional activity of nuclear receptors induced by model agonists.