Various heterodimers of the thyroid hormone receptor (TR) with other nuclear hormone receptors confer a wide range of transcriptional activities on thyroid hormone response elements (TREs) in the presence of the thyroid hormone ($T_3$). The present study analyzed the potential roles of retinoid X receptor (RXR) isoforms $alpha$ and $eta$ in $T_3$-mediated transcription on a well characterized TRE, a direct repeat of AGGTCA separated by four nucleo-tides (DR4), using electrophoretic mobility shift assays and transient transfection in CV-1 cells. We demonstrated that RXR$alpha$ supressed liganded $TR_{alpha}$-induced transcription while $RXR_{eta}$ did not although both $TR_{alpha}/RXR_{alpha}$ and $TR_{alpha}/RXR_{eta}$ heterodimers were the predominant forms bound to the TRE-DR4 in the presence of $T_3$. We further demonstrated using Scatchard analysis that the two heterodimers had similar affinities for the TRE-DR4. All these observations suggest that the TRE-DR4 accomodates different types of TR/RXR heterodimers for a more finely tuned transcriptional response to $T_3$.