Purification of the mineralcorticoid receptor is a particularly challenging problem. This receptor is present in target tissues at concentrations lower and is less stable than any other steroid receptor. Addition of molybdate ions (20 mM) to rat kidney cytosol enhances stability of mineralcorticoid-specific binding sites: the inactivation rate at 0 degrees C decreases from 7.2 to 1.7% per hour in the absence of aldosterone, and from 1.8 to 0.3% per hour in the presence of hormone. Rates of inactivation in the presence of molybdate are thus compatible with purification procedures. Also, the corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) is an important contaminating component of kidney cytosol because it cannot be specifically blocked preliminarily to affinity chromatography. We show that when kidney cytosol is incubated with heparin covalently linked to Sepharose (Sepharose-heparin), after 30 min at 0 degrees C more than 80% of the mineralcorticoid-specific binding sites interact strongly with Sepharose-heparin while CBG is not bound at all. The mineralcorticoid-specific binding sites can be recovered from Sepharose-heparin by washing with heparin (2 mg/ml; recovery up to 90%), KCl (0.3 M; recovery up to 90%); and, less efficiently, with total liver RNA (2 mg/ml; recovery up to 55%) and dextran sulfate (2 mg/ml; recovery up to 40%); little or no recovery is achieved with chondroitin sulfate, sonicated DNA, pyridoxal-5-phosphate, dextran, d-glucosamine and d-glucuronic acid. With demonstration that also the mineral-corticoid receptor binds to heparin, this property has become a general hallmark of steroid receptors. If the "heparin" binding site of steroid receptors is of physiological significance it remains to be established. By application of the newly found property of the mineralcorticoid receptor, an overall 10-fold purified, CBG-free preparation of this receptor can be obtained from kidney cytosol with a single chromatography on Sepharose-heparin.