This volume presents valuable techniques for studying the class of ligand- activated transcription factors known as nuclear receptors. After a brief overview of the history of the field, chapters cover methods to detect the receptors and their mRNAs in various tissues, protocols to characterize nuclear receptor modulators and activities, their signaling and roles in certain pathogenesis, molecular modeling of nuclear receptor-ligand interactions, as well as the utility of informatics in the field of nuclear receptors. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and