Normalized dose response-curves for transcriptional activation of reporter genes were obtained by co-transfecting them with increasing amounts of wild-type (wt) progesterone (PR), glucocorticoid (GR) and oestrogen (ER) expression vectors. Marked differences in both shape and magnitude of the stimulation were observed depending on whether HeLa or CV1 cells were transfected. In HeLa cells the transcriptional stimulation from a reporter gene containing the hormone responsive element (RE) present in the mouse mammary tumour virus (MMTV) long terminal repeat (LTR) increased as increasing amounts (from 0.05 to 7.5 micrograms) of PR expression vector were transfected, whereas no such increase was observed in CV1 cells above 1 microgram of the same vector. In contrast, a PR mutant lacking the hormone binding domain (HBD, region E), exhibited increasing constitutive activity with increasing amounts of PR expression vector, such that in CV1 cells, but not in HeLa cells, similar activities were measured for the mutant and wt PR when 5 micrograms expression vectors were transfected. Western blot analyses indicated that the differences between the two cell lines were not due to differences in the amount of receptor proteins. Using the same MMTV LTR-based reporter gene, cell-specific differences were also detected between the dose-response curves obtained for the human GR and a mutant which lacks the HBD. A PR mutant in which the N-terminal A/B region was deleted exhibited no (CV1 cells) or less than 5% (HeLa cells) of the wt-activity, whereas the corresponding GR mutant stimulated efficiently transcription in both cell lines. Identical studies with the wt human ER or a mutant truncated for the N-terminal A/B region resulted in bell-shaped dose-response curves in both HeLa and CV1 cells, whereas an ER mutant lacking the HBD was weakly active in either cell line. These data demonstrate cell- and receptor-specificity for the transcriptional activation functions present in the A/B region and the HBD of various steroid receptors and suggest that limiting factors mediate their action. The present study also emphasizes the need of establishing dose-response curves to correctly assess the relative contribution of the different regions of steroid hormone receptors in activation of transcription.