The autonomous activation function-2 (AF-2) in the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) E/F domain is known to play a major role in the ligand-induced transactivation function of MR; however, it remained unclear about the transactivation function of its A/B domain. We therefore tried to characterize the MR A/B domain as the AF-1 and further studied the actions of known coactivators for AF-2 in the E/F ligand-binding domain in the function of the MR A/B domain. Deletion analyses of rat and human MRs revealed that the A/B domains harbor a transactivation function acting as AF-1. The MR mutant (E959Q) with a point mutation in helix 12, which causes a complete loss of MR AF-2 activity, still retained ligand-induced transactivation function, indicating a significant role for AF-1 in the full activity of the ligand-induced MR function. Among the coactivators tested to potentiate the MR AF-2, TIF2 and p300 potentiated the MR AF-1 through two different core regions [amino acids (a.a.) 1-169, a.a. 451-603] and exhibited functional interactions with the MR A/B domain in the cultured cells. However, such interactions were undetectable in a yeast and in an in vitro glutathione-S-transferase pull-down assay, indicating that the functional interaction of TIF2 and p300 with the MR A/B domain to support the MR AF-1 activity require some unknown nuclear factor(s) or a proper modification of the A/B domain in the cells.