Long-term exposure to estrogens seriously increases the incidence of various diseases including breast cancer. Experimental studies indicate that cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes catalyze the bioactivation of estrogens to catechols, which can exert their harmful effects via varies routes. It has been shown that the 4-hydroxylation pathway of estrogens is the most malign, while 2-hydroxylation is considered a benign pathway. It is also known experimentally that with increasing unsaturation of ring B of estrogens the prevalence of the 4-hydroxylation pathway significantly increases. In this study we used a combination of structural analysis, docking and quantum chemical calculations at the B3LYP/6-311+G* level to investigate the factors that influence the regioselectivity of estrogen metabolism in man. We studied the structure of human -estrogen metabolizing enzymes (CYP1A1, CYP1A2, CYP1B1, CYP3A4) in complex with estrone using docking, and investigated the susceptibility of estrone, equilin and equilenin (which only differ in the unsaturation of ring B) to undergo 2-and 4-hydroxylation using several models of CYP enzymes (Compound I, methoxy and phenoxy radical). We found that even the simplest models could account for the experimental difference between the 2-and 4-hydroxylation pathways, thus might be used for fast screening purposes. We also show that reactivity indices, specifically in this case the radical and nucleophilic condensed Fukui functions also correctly predict the likeliness of estrogen derivatives to undergo 2-or 4-hydroxylation.4