The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that controls the expression of a diverse set of genes. Structurally diverse compounds bind to AhR and act as AhR agonists. Well characterised family of natural AhR ligands are isoflavones, which are compounds found predominantly in soy beans or red clover. In this study we have examined agonistic effect of selected isoflavones (genistein, daidzein, biochanin A, formononetin and equol) on AhR in the novel transgenic gene reporter human cell line AZ-AhR, a stably transfected AhR-responsive cell line allowing rapid and sensitive assessment of AhR transcriptional activity. We demonstrated that biochanin A, formononetin and genistein at concentration 10(-4) mol/l exerted agonistic effects on AhR with fold activation of 309- fold, 108-fold and 27-fold, which is about 84.8%, 29.6% and 7.4%, respectively, of the value attained by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. Daidzein and equol did not show any significant effects on AhR.