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.