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VDR, the Vitamin D Receptor

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules

Synonyms

Calcitriol receptor; Nuclear receptor subfamily 1, group I, member 1 (NR1I1); Vitamin D receptor (VDR)

Historical Background

Almost from the time life began, vitamin D has been produced by plants and animals. As the structures of plants and animals became more complex, the sites of vitamin D production, its subsequent metabolism, as well as its sites of action separated. The ability to transport and metabolize vitamin D into more active forms therefore evolved. The metabolic active form 1,25(OH)2D3 of vitamin D exerts its actions through interaction with the vitamin D receptor, VDR (Bikle 2011). Although not as ancient, VDR has been highly conserved between species through evolution (Hochberg and Templeton 2010).VDR is found in almost all cells and tissues of higher-order animals, further emphasizing the importance of the receptor. Evidence for the existence of VDR was first provided in 1969 by Haussler and Norman (Feldman and Pike 2005), and since then a substantial amount...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 3, Copenhagen, DK, 2200, Denmark

    Marina Rode von Essen & Carsten Geisler

  2. Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center, Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, Copenhagen, DK, 2100, Denmark

    Marina Rode von Essen

Authors
  1. Marina Rode von Essen
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  2. Carsten Geisler
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marina Rode von Essen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biological Science, Department of Molecular Science and Tech College of Natural Science, Suwon, Korea (Republic of)

    Sangdun Choi

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von Essen, M.R., Geisler, C. (2016). VDR, the Vitamin D Receptor. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_287-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_287-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6438-9

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