AHR and hepatocellular carcinoma: Furthermore, whole-genome analysis of chromatin immunoprecipitation assays of hepatocellular carcinoma cells from wild-type and AHR knock-out mice allowed the identification of several groups of genes involved in cell differentiation and development directly regulated by AHR (Sartor et al., 2009), together with several studies showing that AHR is necessary for the proper differentiation of lymphocytes by mechanisms that are both dependent and independent of their binding to XRE elements (Quintana et al., 2008; Esser et al., 2009; Veldhoen et al., 2009; Mezrich et al., 2010).