Protein / target
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Cis-regulatory region sequence-specific DNA binding
Strongest disease association
Foveal hypoplasia 3
Therapeutic position
Established drug target
Research activity
Emerging research
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function overview
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.
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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 (PubMed:23275542, PubMed:30373764, PubMed:32818467, PubMed:7961644). Upon ligand binding, translocates into the nucleus, where it heterodimerizes with ARNT and induces transcription by binding to xenobiotic response elements (XRE) (PubMed:23275542, PubMed:30373764, PubMed:7961644). Regulates a variety of biological processes, including angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, drug and lipid metabolism, cell motility and immune modulation (PubMed:12213388). 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) (PubMed:7961644, PubMed:33193710). Mediates biochemical and toxic effects of halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (PubMed:34521881, PubMed:7961644). Next to xenobiotics, natural ligands derived from plants, microbiota, and endogenous metabolism are potent AHR agonists (PubMed:18076143). Tryptophan (Trp) derivatives constitute an important class of endogenous AHR ligands (PubMed:32818467, PubMed:32866000). 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 (PubMed:32818467). Regulates the circadian clock by inhibiting the basal and circadian expression of the core circadian component PER1 (PubMed:28602820). Inhibits PER1 by repressing the CLOCK-BMAL1 heterodimer mediated transcriptional activation of PER1 (PubMed:28602820). The heterodimer ARNT:AHR binds to the dioxin response element (DRE) of target gene promoters and activates their transcription (PubMed:28602820)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (50)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Caryl hydrocarbon receptor complex
- Cchromatin
- Ccytoplasm
- Ccytosol
- Ccytosolic aryl hydrocarbon receptor complex
- Cnuclear aryl hydrocarbon receptor complex
- Cnucleoplasm
- Cnucleus
- Cprotein-containing complex
- Ctranscription regulator complex
- Fcis-regulatory region sequence-specific DNA binding
- FDNA binding
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
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Nuclear receptor signalling
- ·Ligand-activated transcription factor that enables cells to adapt to changing conditions…
- ·nuclear receptor activity
Cell migration
- ·Ligand-activated transcription factor that enables cells to adapt to changing conditions…
Lipid & lipoprotein metabolism
- ·Endogenous sterols
Transcriptional regulation
- ·Ligand-activated transcription factor that enables cells to adapt to changing conditions…
- ·transcription regulator complex
- ·DNA-binding transcription factor activity
- ·DNA-binding transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
Immune signalling
- ·negative regulation of inflammatory response
- ·negative regulation of T cell mediated immune response to tumor cell
- ·regulation of adaptive immune response
- ·regulation of B cell proliferation
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Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Interaction neighbourhood
Proteins with the strongest functional or physical association. Node size and line weight reflect STRING confidence; hover or select a partner to inspect one association.
Functional and physical associations from STRING v12.0. Only associations with this protein are drawn — partner-to-partner links are not part of this evidence.
Approved medicines with mapped indications
Approved therapies targeting this protein, grouped by what they are approved to treat — the disease-first view of the medicines below. Relationships come from the canonical approved-indication graph (ChEMBL phase-4), the same source as the drug cards.
Approved indications from ChEMBL (phase-4), via the canonical drug→disease graph.
Drugs targeting this protein
How approved and investigational drugs engage this protein — mechanism and action type, direct vs complex targeting, and how broadly each acts across other targets. A drug-first view (the section above groups the approved ones disease-first); direct binders with few recorded targets are listed first.
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist
Indicated for Psoriasis
ChEMBL mechanism, action type, target identity and approved indications. Open Targets clinical status.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically, strongest evidence first. Disease associations are gene-level (via the gene that encodes this protein) and open into the full confidence synthesis; the development universe, tractability and safety annotations are target-level, from Open Targets.
Strongest disease associations · via encoding gene AHR
Gene-level evidence surfaced through the gene AHRthat encodes this protein — not a direct protein–disease relationship. Ranked by Forefront's causal-directness weighting, so genetically- and clinically-evidenced diseases lead over ones that merely share the literature.
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The evidence agreement range shows how closely the independent evidence families agree — it is not a statistical confidence interval, and nothing here is fitted to outcome data. Derived from Open Targets evidence types under Forefront weighting; the per-type scores above show the calculation.
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Drug development
1 compounds recorded · 1 approved
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Open Targets known-drugs universe. Drug name and highest clinical stage only — the disease relationship is NOT read from this slice (it carries trial-context noise); approved indications come from the canonical graph above.
Tractability
Small molecules — Strong
Protein degraders — Emerging
View underlying tractability evidence (8)Hide
Raw Open Targets tractability assessment buckets, by modality.
Safety-related annotations
Terms indexed against this target in Open Targets' safety data, with their datasource. These are annotations, not causal claims: the direction of effect (whether activation or inhibition is implicated), species and evidence strength are not captured here, so an entry does not mean that modulating this target is known to cause that condition.
Clinical trials
Trials of drugs that target this protein — reached indirectly through those drugs, so a trial listed here studies the drug, not the protein. Ranked by active status, then clinical phase and recency, and spread across the targeting drugs.
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ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
What's happening now
Recent therapeutic activity around this target — regulatory actions, clinical trials and safety signals for a drug that targets this protein, plus publications where such a drug is a genuine subject. Every item is reached indirectly through the drug, not the protein itself; incidental mentions (a paper that merely measures a drug) and press items are excluded.
Objective event titles are shown unmodified; the event kind and significance line are derived from structured fields. Forefront AttentionEvent stream aggregating Europe PMC Regulatory filings ClinicalTrials.gov.
Research activity
Papers linked directly to this protein. This is the protein's own literature — descriptor-derived papers are kept separate below.
Most cited
Recent
Europe PMC papers linked directly to this protein.