We prove gradient estimates for transition Markov semigroups (P t ) associated to SDEs driven by multiplicative Brownian noise having possibly unbounded C 1 -coefficients, without requiring any monotonicity type condition. In particular, first derivatives of coefficients can grow polynomially and even exponentially. We establish pointwise estimates with weights for DTo prove the result we use two main tools. First, we consider a Feynman-Kac semigroup with potential V related to the growth of the coefficients and of their derivatives for which we can use a Bismut-Elworthy-Li type formula. Second, we introduce a new regular approximation for the coefficients of the SDE. At the end of the paper we provide an example of SDE with additive noise and drift b having sublinear growth together with its derivative such that uniform estimates for D x P t ϕ without weights do not hold.2010 Mathematics Subject Classification AMS: 60H10, 60H30, 47D07.