Nuclear binding assay for steroid receptor functionality in cancerous cells

A method is described for rapidly assaying a tissue sample for nuclear antisteroid binding comprising: (a) fragmenting the tissue sample; (b) digesting the fragmented tissue with collagenase; (c) isolating the cells from the digested tissue; (d) incubating the cells with an amount of a radiolabelled antisteroid capable of complexing with and saturating the steroid receptors in the cells; (e) isolating the cellular nuclei; (f) measuring the bound radioactivity and the total DNA of the nuclei; and (g) comparing the amount of bound radioactivity and the total DNA to determine a measure of the total nuclear bound steroid receptors