Introduction of estrogen-responsiveness into mammalian cell lines.

We introduced estrogen responsiveness as a new characteristic into rat hepatoma, mouse Ltk- and human HeLatk-cells by transfecting the human estrogen receptor (ER) cDNA. To measure the estrogen response we used Xenopus vitellogenin gene A2 constructs linked to the bacterial CAT gene. Transient cotransfections of the ER cDNA and the vitellogenin gene-CAT constructs containing the estrogen responsive element (ERE) lead to a hormone dependent induction of CAT activity whereas cotransfected vitellogenin gene constructs lacking the ERE are not inducible. Stable transfections of ER cDNA into Ltk- cells give rise to cell clones that are estrogen responsive as shown by transfection of various vitellogenin gene-CAT constructs. These results prove that the transfected ER is biologically active and is sufficient to make a cell estrogen responsive.     

乳腺癌雌激素受体β不同亚型表达载体的构建及其转录活性分析

目的：构建人乳腺癌中雌激素受体B（ERβ）3种亚型ERβ1、ERβ2和ERβ5的真核表达载体,测定不同亚型ERβ的转录活性。方法：以乳腺癌细胞MCF7的cDNA为模板,PCR扩增ERβ1、ERβ2和ERβ5万基因,分别克隆到pXJ40-Mye载体,Western印迹检测克隆载体在293T细胞内的表达;将上述载体与含雌激素应答元件（ERE）的萤光素酶（Luc）报告基因载体（ERE—luc）共转293T细胞,测定各亚型ER／3的转录活性。结果：构建了Myc—ERβ1、Myc—ERβ2和Mye—ERβ5表达载体,转录活性结果显示上述表达载体均具有活性,雌激素可升高ERβ5的转录活性,不能升高Eβ2和ER5的转录活性。结论：该研究为进-步探讨不同亚型ERβ在乳腺癌中的功能奠定了基础。     

HMG-1 stimulates estrogen response element binding by estrogen receptor from stably transfected HeLa cells

Estrogen receptor (ER) toxicity has hampered the development of vertebrate cell lines stably expressing substantial levels of recombinant wild-type ER. To isolate clonal lines of HeLa cells stably expressing epitope-tagged ER, we used a construction encoding a single bicistronic mRNA, in which FLAG-epitope-tagged human ER alpha (fER) was translated from a 5'-translation initiation site and fused to the neomycin resistance gene, which was translated from an internal ribosome entry site. One stable HeLa-ER-positive cell line (HeLa-ER1) produces 1,300,000 molecules of fER/cell (approximately 20-fold more ER than MCF-7 cells). The HeLa fER is biologically active in vivo, as judged by rapid death of the cells in the presence of either 17 beta-estradiol or trans-hydroxytamoxifen and the ability of the cell line to activate a transfected estrogen response element (ERE)-containing reporter gene. The FLAG-tagged ER was purified to near homogeneity in a single step by immunoaffinity chromatography with anti-FLAG monoclonal antibody. Purified fER exhibited a distribution constant (KD) for 17 beta-estradiol of 0.45 nM. Purified HeLa fER and HeLa fER in crude nuclear extracts exhibit similar KD values for the ERE (0.8 nM and 1 nM, respectively), which are approximately 10 times lower than the KD of 10 nM we determined for purified ER expressed using the baculovirus system. HMG-1 strongly stimulated binding of both crude and purified HeLa fER to the ERE (KD of 0.25 nM). In transfected HeLa cells, HMG-1 exhibited a dose-dependent stimulation of 17 beta-estradiol-dependent transactivation. At high levels of transfected HMG-1 expression plasmid, transactivation by ER became partially ligand-independent, and transactivation by trans-hydroxytamoxifen was increased by more than 25-fold. These data describe a system in which ER, stably expressed in HeLa cells and easily purified, exhibits extremely high affinity for the ERE, and suggest that intracellular levels of HMG-1 may be limiting for ER action.