Vitamin D receptor exhibits different pharmacodynamic features in tumoral and normal microenvironments: a molecular modeling study.

•VDR receptor exhibit different pharmacodinamic states under neutral and acidic environments.•The selectivity for tumoral cells of VDR agonists is related different ionization behavior of hisitidine residues.•His305 is more acidic than His397, with both of them lying within de VDR ligand binding domain.•Our findings further aids the virtual screening of both potent and selective VDR agonists.