Figure 1: Organisation map of the human glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene (NR3C1) and gene products (Gen Bank Accession Number NM_001018076). The human GR gene consists of nine exons (designated by the numbered boxes) coding various regions of the receptor. Exon 1 and the first 13 nucleotides of exon 2 encode the 5’ untranslated region (5’ UTR), with the remainder of exon 2 coding the N-terminal region. Exon 3 and 4 encode the first and second zinc-finger motifs respectively in the DNA binding domain (DBD). The ligand binding domain (LBD) is coded for by the next four exons, with exon 9 containing coding sequences for the 3’ untranslated region (3’ UTR). Alternative splicing of exon 9 generates two different transcripts: GR-α mRNA contains exon 9α and GR-β mRNA contains exon GR-β. The location of the GR-α and GR-β specific primers used in this study are indicated by the following symbol (   ).