Specificity
Two families of retinoid receptors, RARs and RXRs, have been identified. Retinoic acid receptors (RARs) include RAR, are activated by 9-cis-RA, a stereo- and photo-isomer of all trans-RA that is expressed in vivo in both liver and kidney and may represent a widely used hormone. As is true for the RAR subfamily, the RXR receptors are closely related to each other both in their DNA-binding and ligand-binding domains and are encoded by separate genes at distinct chromosomal loci.