Retinoic acid (RA) is known to exert profound effects on growth and differentiation in human dermal fibroblasts. In the observations presented here, we examined the regulation of expression of members of the RXR multigene family in human dermal fibroblasts. We showed that the messenger RNAs for both RXR alpha and RXR beta are expressed in human fibroblasts, but that the messenger RNA for RXR gamma is not detectable in these cells. Electrophoretic mobility shift studies of binding to the beta 2RARE in human dermal fibroblasts demonstrated that a single complex binds to beta 2RARE in the absence of RA. Stimulating cells with all-trans RA induced a second complex. An antibody to the RXR beta protein supershifted both complexes, while an antibody to the RXR alpha S/B protein had no effect on the binding. These data demonstrate that RXR beta plays an important role in retinoid-regulated signal transduction pathways in human dermal fibroblasts and the regulation of expression of the RXR gene family is different from that of the RAR gene family.