Research on the aryl hydrocarbon (dioxin) receptor is primed to take off.

Hitherto the lack of success in cloning the aryl hydrocarbon (Ah) receptor has severely hindered its analysis. The recent cloning of cDNAs for two subunits of the receptor should lead to a renaissance in research. Furthermore, the sequences of the two subunits, as deduced from their cDNA sequences, have shown that the structure of the receptor is very different from what many researchers had expected. I describe here these recent results, and outline several future avenues for research.