Abstract: AIM: To study the growth-inhibition and apoptosis-inducted by docitaxol in osteosarcomatous cells. METHODS: Docitaxol-induced osteosarcomatous cells were detected and observed with cell counting, morpho-logic observation, flow cytometry (FCM), and electron-microscope etc. RESULTS: Docitaxol could inhibit the growth of osteosarcomatous cells effectively at the concen-tration of 4 mg·L^-1 in a time-dependent manner and fur-ther dose-dependent manner in a certain range. Osteosar-comatous cells were blocked during G1/M phage and in-duced to apoptosis.Cells undergoing apoptosis exhibited the following typical features;an apparent apoptoic peak during dection of cell cycle with FCM, chromatin' s cling to periphery of the shrunken nuclear, apoptitic body, and floccule condensed matrix with electron-microscope. Fur-ther, cells recultureed after being treated with docitaxol shortly were more apt to undergo apoptosis than cells treated with docitaxol continually. CONCLUSION: Be-cause of the ability to induce apopotisis, docitaxl shows a great potential in the treatment of osteosarcoma.

Key words: docitaxl, osteosarcoma, cells apoptosis