Abstract: Objective To investigate the effect of sophocarpine on the growth of human HCT 116 colon cancer cells.Methods HCT-116 cells were treated with sophocarpine at different concentrations for 48 h. Their proliferation was detected by the cytotoxic assay. According to IC50 values, three concentrations were selected for further experiments. Then, the capability of a single cell to form a colon was measured by the clonogenic assay. The apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry. The mitochondrial membrane potential were determined by the mitochondrial membrane potential assay. The levels of apoptosis-associated proteins and survivin were measured by Western blot.Results According to the cytotoxic assay, sophocarpine inhibited the proliferation of HCT-116 cells and the inhibitory effect increased with the rising of sophocarpine concentrations. The IC50 value was 2.134 mmol/L and then 1, 2 and 4 mmol/L sophocarpine were selected for further experiments. After treatment with sophocarpine, remarkable decreases were see in the clonogenic capability and mitochondrial membrane potentials, while apoptosis was enhanced(P＜0.05). Furthermore, treatment with sophocarpine resulted in downregulated expression of Bcl-xL, Bcl-2 and survivin in HCT-116 cells after, and upregulated expression of Bax, Cleaved Caspase-3, and Cleaved Caspase-9.Conclusions Sophocarpine inhibits the proliferation of HCT-116 cells and promoted apoptosis via the mitochondrial pathway.