Characterization of extra-nuclear estrogen receptors in the central nervous system.

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This research was planned to characterize extra-nuclear estrogen receptors that mediate non-genomic effects of estrogens in the central nervous system. The genomic organization of human, mouse, and rat estrogen receptor α (ERα) genes was re-examined. The analysis revealed more complicated genomic structures of the ERα genes and localization of novel promoters and exons in the 5’-, intronic and 3’-regions of the genes. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated that alternative promoter usage and alternative splicing generated numerous mRNA variants that encoded N-terminally- and C-terminally-truncated estrogen receptors. The variant proteins exhibited distinct functional properties and cellular localization compared with those of the wild-type ERα proteins.