Library · Molecule
Hormone receptor
Make it clearer
A hormone is a chemical message that travels through the blood, and blood goes everywhere. So why doesn't a hormone do the same thing to every cell in the body? Because the message is not enough: something has to be able to read it.
That reader is the receptor, a piece of the cell built to fit one specific hormone. It is a lock: the key opens only the door it belongs to. If the hormone fits, something happens. If it does not fit, absolutely nothing happens, even with the hormone right there knocking. The set of cells that do carry that lock is called the target tissue, and it is the only tissue the hormone can give orders to.
There are two places to install the lock. Protein hormones carry it on the cell surface, and by that route the chain of events leading to the effect is relatively fast. Steroid hormones, on the other hand, usually find their receptor inside the cell, so the message gets read somewhere else.
In brief
The blood carries every hormone throughout the body, but a hormone only acts on cells that have a receptor for it.
If the hormone fits the receptor there is an effect, and if it does not fit there is no reaction; the cells that do have that receptor make up that hormone's target tissue.
A lock: the key opens only the door it belongs to.
Protein hormones use surface receptors, and by that route the response is relatively fast; steroid hormones usually use receptors inside the cell.
Sources (1)
- SEER Training Modules, National Cancer InstituteCharacteristics of Hormones, SEER Training Modules
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated