New human erg isoforms generated by alternative splicing are transcriptional activators.

The erg gene is a member of the ets gene family. ETS proteins have been shown to bind specifically the (GGA-A/T) motif and to transactivate via this consensus sequence. The human erg products exhibit approximately 70% homology with ETS proteins in their DNA-binding domain. We have isolated three erg cDNAs from a human fetal liver library. Two of them are different from the previously described erg-1 and erg-2 cDNAs (Rao et al., Science, 1987, 237, 635-639), in the middle of their coding sequence and in their 5' part where a novel initiation codon is introduced. These isoforms are generated by alternative RNA splicing from a single gene that leads to the inclusion or exclusion of different exon sequences. The three cDNAs expressed by an in vitro transcription-translation system direct the synthesis of proteins of approximately 38, 49 and 55 kDa. These in vitro erg products were tested for their DNA-binding activity by gel mobility-shift assays with different probes containing the ETS-specific binding site. The results indicated that all these erg isoforms are able to bind the ETS binding site in a specific manner. Our data using transient transfection assays indicate that erg protein isoforms function as transcriptional activators.