Retinoic Acid Receptor Gamma (RARg)

Retinoic acid receptors are retinoic acid-inducible enhancer factors belonging to the superfamily of steroid/thyroid nuclear receptors. A third type of receptor, Retinoic Acid Receptor Gamma, was first identified in the mouse where its RNA was detected predominantly in skin, a well-known target for retinoic acid. Krust et al. (1989) used mouse cDNA to clone the human counterpart. Comparisons of the amino acid sequences of all 6 human and mouse RARs indicated that the interspecies conservation of a given member of the RAR subfamily, i.e., alpha, beta, or gamma, is much higher than the conservation of all 3 receptors in a given species. These observations indicate that the 3 forms of retinoic acid receptor may perform specific functions.