D.J. Mangelsdorf, U. Borgmeyer, R.A. Heyman, et al., "Characterization of three RXR genes that mediate the action of 9-cis retinoic acid," Genes & Development, 6:329-44, 1992.
David J. Mangelsdorf (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas): "Nuclear hormone receptors are a family of related transcription factors that are activated by binding small hydrophobic hormones like the steroids, thyroxin, vitamin D3, and all-trans retinoic acid. One intriguing aspect of nuclear hormone receptor biology is that in addition to the known receptors there are dozens of others for which a hormone (that is, a ligand) is unknown. We call these `orphan' receptors.
"In 1990 we published a paper describing one of these orphans as a receptor for a novel vitamin A derivative, which we called retinoid X (D.J. Mangelsdorf, et al., Nature, 345:224-9, 1990). Subsequently, we demonstrated that the ligand for this retinoid X receptor (RXR) was 9-cis ...
