Abstract: Objective To study the effects of 2,3′,4,4′-tetramethoxybiphenyl(TMBP)on the anti-proliferation,apoptosis and expression of procaspase-3 in human cervical cancer HeLa cells in vitro.Methods HeLa cells were cultured in vitro and were incubated by TMBP in different concentrations.The cells were detected with MTT assay,fluorescent staining,DNA fragmentation assay,Western blot assay to observe the anti-proliferation and apoptosis-inducing effects,respectively.Results TMBP induced HeLa cells apoptosis in a time-and dose-dependent manner.Treated with 100M TMBP for 24h,nuclear morphological changes were observed by Hoechst 33258 staining.DNA fragmentation became obvious after various concentration TMBP-treated for 36h.Cleavages of procaspse-3 protein were observed with western blot assay.Conclusion TMBP could inhibited proliferation and induce apoptosis in HeLa cells,which may be related to the activation of caspase-3.