Elsevier

Biochemical Pharmacology

Volume 57, Issue 6, 15 March 1999, Pages 597-601
Biochemical Pharmacology

Rapid Communications
Interaction of human estrogen receptors α and β with the same naturally occurring estrogen response elements

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-2952(98)00355-4Get rights and content

Abstract

Estrogen receptors are derived from two different gene products referred to as estrogen receptor-α (ER-α) and ER-β. Both receptors bind to the consensus estrogen response element (ERE) present in the vitellogenin gene, but their binding to hormone response elements present in other estrogen responsive genes has not been reported yet. Using in vitro expressed human receptors, we now show that ER-β binds to a panel of six endogenous hormone response elements (vitellogenin, c-fos, c-jun, pS2, cathepsin D, and choline acetyltransferase) already known to bind ER-α and confer estrogen inducibility to reporter constructs. Binding of ER-α and ER-β occurred at similar DNA concentrations for some EREs, but different DNA concentrations were required to form complexes of the two receptors with other elements. These results illustrate for the first time by direct receptor–DNA binding studies that both ER-α and ER-β bind to a number of EREs present in endogenous hormone regulated genes, and further suggest that the two forms of the receptor display different patterns of affinities for naturally occurring hormone response elements.

Section snippets

Materials

Enzymes were obtained from Boehringer Mannheim, and oligonucleotides were synthesized by Genosys or National Biosciences. Recombinant human ER-α (66 kDa) and ER-β (53 kDa) [2] were obtained from Panvera. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis supplies were obtained from Bio-Rad. Antibody H-222 was provided by Dr. Geoffrey Greene of the University of Chicago. All other materials used were of the highest grade commercially available.

Oligonucleotide preparation and gel-shift assays

The nucleotides containing the natural EREs (underlined) used are

Results

As an initial positive control, we tested the ability of the receptors to bind specifically to the vit-ERE as previously reported 8, 16, and to determine the usable range of ER protein concentration. As shown in Fig. 1 , both ER-α and ER-β bound the vit-ERE at protein levels between 25 and 100 ng under our assay conditions. Binding of both receptors was specific as indicated by competition with a 100-fold excess of unlabeled DNA. Note also that the migration of the ER-β complex was slightly

Discussion

We have examined the binding of ER-α and ER-β to a variety of naturally occurring EREs including: (a) the palindromic vitellogenin element, (b) four elements (fos, jun, pS2, and cathepsin D) of the type most frequently observed in endogenous hormone-responsive genes, i.e. one perfect half-site and a second half-site with 1–3 base changes from the palindromic vit-ERE, and (c) a non-palindromic element (choline acetyltransferase) with overall similarity to the vit-ERE (eight of ten nucleotides

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIH Grant HD-08615. We would like to thank Ms. Heidi Porter for editorial assistance.

References (18)

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