Estrogen receptor variants are present in many normal human tissues.

Estrogen receptors (ER) are present in various reproductive tissues as well as in other tissues not considered classical targets for estrogen. A variety of alternatively spliced ER variants which co-exist with the wild-type receptor has also been described in many tissues. We analyzed the presence of both wild-type and variant receptors from normal human tissues of various origin using semi-nested PCR and direct automated sequence of the amplified products. We demonstrate that many normal human tissues of various origin contain a number of spliced variants of the estrogen receptor that co-exist with the wild-type receptor. Variants lacking exons 2, 4, 5, and 7 are detected in a variety of normal human tissues.