Selective receptor modulator

Selective receptor modulator
Drug class
Tamoxifen, a SERMTooltip selective estrogen receptor modulator and a widely used drug in the treatment of breast cancer.
Class identifiers
SynonymsSRM
UseVarious
Biological targetSteroid hormone receptor
Chemical classSteroidal; Nonsteroidal
Legal status
In Wikidata

In the field of pharmacology, a selective receptor modulator or SRM is a type of drug that has different effects in different tissues.[1] A SRM may behave as an agonist in some tissues while as an antagonist in others. Hence selective receptor modulators are sometimes referred to as tissue selective drugs or mixed agonists / antagonists. This tissue selective behavior is in contrast to many other drugs that behave either as agonists or antagonists regardless of the tissue in question.

  1. ^ Smith CL, O'Malley BW (February 2004). "Coregulator function: a key to understanding tissue specificity of selective receptor modulators". Endocr. Rev. 25 (1): 45–71. doi:10.1210/er.2003-0023. PMID 14769827.