Cosmic microwave background theory

A long-standing goal of theorists has been to constrain cosmological parameters that define the structure formation theory from cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy experiments and large-scale structure (LSS) observations. The status and future promise of this enterprise is described. Current band-powers in ℓ-space are consistent with a ΔT flat in frequency and broadly follow inflation-based expectations. That the levels are ∼(10−5)2 provides strong support for the gravitational instability theory, while the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) constraints on energy injection rule out cosmic explosions as a dominant source of LSS. Band-powers at ℓ ≳ 100 suggest that the universe could not have re-ionized too early. To get the LSS of Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)-normalized fluctuations right provides encouraging support that the initial fluctuation spectrum was not far off the scale invariant form that inflation models prefer: e.g., for tilted Λ cold dark matter sequences of fixed 13-Gyr age (with the Hubble constant H0 marginalized), ns = 1.17 ± 0.3 for Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) only; 1.15 ± 0.08 for DMR plus the SK95 experiment; 1.00 ± 0.04 for DMR plus all smaller angle experiments; 1.00 ± 0.05 when LSS constraints are included as well. The CMB alone currently gives weak constraints on Λ and moderate constraints on Ωtot, but theoretical forecasts of future long duration balloon and satellite experiments are shown which predict percent-level accuracy among a large fraction of the 10+ parameters characterizing the cosmic structure formation theory, at least if it is an inflation variant.

Analysis of estrogen receptor transcriptional enhancement by a nuclear hormone receptor coactivator.

The estrogen receptor (ER), a member of a large superfamily of nuclear hormone receptors, is a ligand-inducible transcription factor that regulates the expression of estrogen-responsive genes. The ER, in common with other members of this superfamily, contains two transcription activation functions (AFs)--one located in the amino-terminal region (AF-1) and the second located in the carboxyl-terminal region (AF-2). In most cell contexts, the synergistic activity of AF-1 and AF-2 is required for full estradiol (E2)-stimulated activity. We have previously shown that a ligand-dependent interaction between the two AF-containing regions of ER was promoted by E2 and the antiestrogen trans-hydroxytamoxifen (TOT). This interaction, however, was transcriptionally productive only in the presence of E2. To explore a possible role of steroid receptor coactivators in transcriptional synergism between AF-1 and AF-2, we expressed the amino terminal (AF-1-containing) and carboxyl-terminal (AF-2-containing) regions of ER as separate polypeptides in mammalian cells, along with the steroid receptor coactivator-1 protein (SRC-1). We demonstrate that SRC-1, which has been shown to significantly increase ER transcriptional activity, enhanced the interaction, mediated by either E2 or TOT, between the AF-1-containing and AF-2-containing regions of the ER. However, this enhanced interaction resulted in increased transcriptional effectiveness only with E2 and not with TOT, consistent with the effects of SRC-1 on the full-length receptor. Our results suggest that after ligand binding, SRC-1 may act, in part, as an adapter protein that promotes the integration of amino- and carboxyl-terminal receptor functions, allowing for full receptor activation. Potentially, SRC-1 may be capable of enhancing the transcriptional activity of related nuclear receptor superfamily members by facilitating the productive association of the two AF-containing regions in these receptors.