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Post-Receptor Defect

Meaning

A Post-Receptor Defect describes an impairment in the critical cellular signaling pathway that occurs after a hormone has successfully bound to its specific receptor on the cell surface or inside the cell nucleus. This defect means that while the initial, necessary hormone-receptor binding event is structurally normal, the subsequent cascade of intracellular events required to elicit the biological response is compromised or completely blocked. Clinically, this manifests as hormone resistance, a condition where high circulating hormone levels fail to produce the expected or necessary physiological effect in the target tissue.