AIP and pituitary tumor: Tapella et al. (2017) demonstrated in vitro that the pollutants benzene (BZ) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) can interfere with normal rat pituitary cell proliferation and promote changes in gene expression at the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) and in aryl hydrocarbon receptor-interacting protein (AIP) levels, providing a link between epidemiological and genomic findings in pituitary tumors [36].