lmmol · Proteins

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor

UniProt P35869 Organism Homo sapiens Gene AHR, BHLHE76

Also known as: AHR, BHLHE76

Function

Ligand-activated transcription factor that enables cells to adapt to changing conditions by sensing compounds from the environment, diet, microbiome and cellular metabolism, and which plays important roles in development, immunity and cancer. Upon ligand binding, translocates into the nucleus, where it heterodimerizes with ARNT and induces transcription by binding to xenobiotic response elements (XRE). Regulates a variety of biological processes, including angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, drug and lipid metabolism, cell motility and immune modulation. Xenobiotics can act as ligands: upon xenobiotic-binding, activates the expression of multiple phase I and II xenobiotic chemical metabolizing enzyme genes (such as the CYP1A1 gene). Mediates biochemical and toxic effects of halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons. Next to xenobiotics, natural ligands derived from plants, microbiota, and endogenous metabolism are potent AHR agonists. Tryptophan (Trp) derivatives constitute an important class of endogenous AHR ligands. Acts as a negative regulator of anti-tumor immunity: indoles and kynurenic acid generated by Trp catabolism act as ligand and activate AHR, thereby promoting AHR-driven cancer cell motility and suppressing adaptive immunity. Regulates the circadian clock by inhibiting the basal and circadian expression of the core circadian component PER1. Inhibits PER1 by repressing the CLOCK-BMAL1 heterodimer mediated transcriptional activation of PER1. The heterodimer ARNT:AHR binds to the dioxin response element (DRE) of target gene promoters and activates their transcription.

Classification

Family (Pfam)
PF00010 HLH, PF00989 PAS, PF08447 PAS_3
InterPro
AHR/AHRR, AHR_bHLH, bHLH_dom, HLH_DNA-bd_sf, PAC, PAS, PAS-like_dom_sf, PAS_fold, PAS_fold_3
Functional cluster
Homeobox & Zinc-Finger Transcription Factors

Experimental structures · PDB · 3

A predicted model is available from AlphaFold.

Gene Ontology · 46

Disease associations

Drugs targeting this protein · 1

Related proteins · sequence + function similarity

Co-cited proteins · studied together in the literature

Literature · 31 cited papers

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