Arsenite, an environmental cocontaminant of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), diminishes the PAH-mediated upregulation of human CYP1A1, the enzyme that bioactivates PAHs to carcinogenic metabolites. Mechanistically, while transcriptional downregulation contributes to these effects, a role for posttranslational regulation has been implicated but not proven. We hypothesize that arsenite induces heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), which catabolizes CYP1A1 heme or cellular heme pools, thereby downregulating CYP1A1. Arsenite (5 microM), in HepG2 cells, induced HO-1 mRNA 7.4-fold over the 48 h observation period, and it upregulated HO-1 protein expression. Arsenite decreased the induction of CYP1A1 by a PAH, benzo[k]fluoranthene (BKF), by 50%; and transfection of HepG2 cells with siRNA targeting the human HO-1 gene, reduced the arsenite downregulation of BKF-induced CYP1A1 from 54% to 27%, relative to untransfected cells. Reconstituted HO-1 did not significantly catabolize CYP1A1 heme in vitro. Together these findings demonstrate that a posttranslational mechanism involving decreases in the cellular heme pool by arsenite-induced HO-1 may contribute to arsenite-mediated downregulation of CYP1A1.