{"entity":{"id":"ar-v7","kind":"term","name":"AR-V7 splice variant","aka":["androgen receptor splice variant","androgen receptor splice variant 7","AR splice variant","AR-V7 positive","AR variant","AR-V9","AR-V567es","truncated androgen receptor"],"tldr":"A truncated form of the androgen receptor that is permanently switched on and ignores hormone-blocking pills.","summary":"AR-V7 is a truncated splice variant of the androgen receptor that lacks the ligand-binding domain, so it is permanently active and cannot be switched off by hormone-blocking drugs. It is detected in circulating tumour cells, for example by the Epic Sciences nuclear AR-V7 test, and its presence is associated with resistance to abiraterone and enzalutamide while taxane sensitivity is preserved, which makes it a candidate for guiding the choice between those classes. Readers meet it under castration-resistant prostate cancer, in the androgen receptor signalling pathway, the RNA splicing and transcriptional addiction pathways, and on the resistance-routes map. It is the rationale for N-terminal domain inhibitors such as masofaniten, which failed, and for androgen receptor degraders.","asOf":"2026-09-06","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_receptor#Splice_variants","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_receptor#Splice_variants"},{"label":"Antonarakis et al., New England Journal of Medicine 2014: AR-V7 and resistance to enzalutamide and abiraterone in prostate cancer","url":"https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa1315815"}],"tags":[],"related":["neuroendocrine-differentiation","bipolar-androgen-therapy","paper-antonarakis-ar-v7-resistance-nejm-2014"],"cancers":["prostate","prostate-mcrpc"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":["androgen-receptor"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":["ar-signaling"],"terms":["neuroendocrine-differentiation","genome-wide-loss-of-heterozygosity","bipolar-androgen-therapy"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-antonarakis-ar-v7-resistance-nejm-2014","paper-prophecy-arv7-validation-jco-2019","paper-scher-nuclear-arv7-taxane-vs-arsi-jama-oncol-2018"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Why a splice variant defeats a drug, in one sentence. Alternative splicing of the androgen receptor transcript produces truncated receptors, of which AR-V7 is the commonest and best studied, that retain the DNA-binding domain but lack the ligand-binding domain; they are constitutively active, and enzalutamide and abiraterone both act on the ligand-binding domain that is no longer there. AR-V9 and AR-V567es are other described variants, less well characterised clinically.","The original figures, with their cohort. In 62 men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer starting enzalutamide or abiraterone, AR-V7 messenger RNA was detectable in circulating tumour cells in 39 percent of 31 enzalutamide-treated and 19 percent of 31 abiraterone-treated men. Prostate-specific antigen response was 0 percent in AR-V7-positive men against 53 percent (enzalutamide) and 68 percent (abiraterone) in AR-V7-negative men; median prostate-specific antigen progression-free survival on enzalutamide was 1.4 against 6.0 months and overall survival 5.5 months against not reached.","Why the test is available and little used. A negative result does not predict response, only the absence of this one resistance mechanism, and most non-responders are AR-V7-negative. Messenger RNA and protein-based assays do not identify the same men and the test is not standardised between laboratories. And the treatments a positive result would send a man to, taxanes and radioligand therapy, tend to be given in that sequence anyway."],"category":"Resistance"},"route":"/terms/ar-v7/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"bipolar-androgen-therapy","kind":"term","name":"Bipolar androgen therapy (BAT)","route":"/terms/bipolar-androgen-therapy/"},{"id":"castration-resistance","kind":"term","name":"Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC)","route":"/terms/castration-resistance/"},{"id":"genome-wide-loss-of-heterozygosity","kind":"term","name":"Genome-wide loss of heterozygosity (gLOH)","route":"/terms/genome-wide-loss-of-heterozygosity/"},{"id":"neuroendocrine-differentiation","kind":"term","name":"Neuroendocrine differentiation in prostate cancer","route":"/terms/neuroendocrine-differentiation/"},{"id":"prostate-failed-programmes","kind":"term","name":"Prostate cancer programmes that failed, and what each failure taught","route":"/terms/prostate-failed-programmes/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-antonarakis-ar-v7-resistance-nejm-2014","kind":"paper","name":"AR-V7 and resistance to enzalutamide and abiraterone in prostate cancer","route":"/key-papers/paper-antonarakis-ar-v7-resistance-nejm-2014/"},{"id":"paper-scher-nuclear-arv7-taxane-vs-arsi-jama-oncol-2018","kind":"paper","name":"Nuclear-localised androgen receptor splice variant 7 in circulating tumour cells as a predictive biomarker in castration-resistant prostate cancer","route":"/key-papers/paper-scher-nuclear-arv7-taxane-vs-arsi-jama-oncol-2018/"},{"id":"paper-prophecy-arv7-validation-jco-2019","kind":"paper","name":"PROPHECY: prospective multicentre validation of androgen receptor splice variant 7 and hormone therapy resistance in high-risk castration-resistant prostate cancer","route":"/key-papers/paper-prophecy-arv7-validation-jco-2019/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"prostate-mcrpc","kind":"cancer","name":"Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate-mcrpc/"},{"id":"prostate-nmcrpc","kind":"cancer","name":"Non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate-nmcrpc/"},{"id":"prostate","kind":"cancer","name":"Prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate/"}],"target":[{"id":"androgen-receptor","kind":"target","name":"Androgen receptor","route":"/targets/androgen-receptor/"}],"pathway":[{"id":"ar-signaling","kind":"pathway","name":"Androgen receptor signalling","route":"/pathways/ar-signaling/"},{"id":"resistance-routes-map","kind":"pathway","name":"Resistance routes: how a blocked pathway comes back","route":"/pathways/resistance-routes-map/"},{"id":"rna-splicing","kind":"pathway","name":"RNA splicing","route":"/pathways/rna-splicing/"},{"id":"transcription-addiction","kind":"pathway","name":"Transcriptional machinery & addiction","route":"/pathways/transcription-addiction/"}],"drug":[{"id":"galeterone","kind":"drug","name":"Galeterone","route":"/drugs/galeterone/"},{"id":"masofaniten","kind":"drug","name":"Masofaniten","route":"/drugs/masofaniten/"}],"trial":[{"id":"armor3-sv","kind":"trial","name":"ARMOR3-SV","route":"/trials/armor3-sv/"},{"id":"card","kind":"trial","name":"CARD","route":"/trials/card/"}],"biomarker":[{"id":"ar-v7-splice-variant","kind":"biomarker","name":"AR-V7 splice variant","route":"/biomarkers/ar-v7-splice-variant/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cellsearch-ctc-count","kind":"technology","name":"CellSearch circulating tumour cell count","route":"/technologies/cellsearch-ctc-count/"},{"id":"parsortix-ctc-harvest","kind":"technology","name":"Parsortix label-free circulating tumour cell harvest","route":"/technologies/parsortix-ctc-harvest/"}]}}