The study aims to investigate the effect of retinoic acid on the iodide uptake of MCF-7 cells and its mechanism. The iodide uptake and expression of hNIS(human sodium/iodide symporter)mRNA in the breast cancer MCF-7 cells were compared individually before and after the intervention of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) with the iodide uptake assay and RT-PCR. The following results are obtained: (1) when treated with all-trans retinoic acid in the concentration of 1.0 µmol/L, the capacity of iodide uptake of MCF-7 cells reached about 1.5 times of the basal state; (2) 12 h after the intervention of 1.0 µmol/L ATRA, the hNISmRNA expression of the MCF-7 cells reached maximum. The study shows that all-trans retinoic acid has the effect to improve the iodide uptake of the MCF-7 cells and this effect may result from its up-regulation of the hNISmRNA expression.