Aim: To investigate the mechanism of silibinin-protected isoproterenol-induced apoptosis in rat cardiac myocytes.Methods: The viability of rat cardiac myocytes was measured by MTT method. The apoptotic ratio was measured by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling. Protein kinase C (PKC) activity assay was carried out according to the instructions of the PepTag non-radioactive protein kinase C assay kit. Weste blot analysis was used to evaluate the level of Ras, Raf-1 and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) expression.Results: The protective effects of silibinin were significantly sup-pressed by inhibitors, including genistein, manumycin A and GW5074 [inhibitors for protein tyrosine kinases (PTK), Ras and Raf- 1, respectively]. The exposure of rat cardiac myocytes to isoproterenol alone caused decreased PKC activity, which was prevented by pretreatment with silibinin dose-dependently. Simultaneously,the increased expression of Ras and Raf-1 activated by silibinin were blocked by the PKC inhibitor, stauroporine. In addition, the extracellularly responsive kinase (ERK) inhibitor, PD98059, suppressed silibinin-protected apoptosis, whereas the p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580, protected cardiac myocytes from isoproterenol-induced injury, and the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitor, SP600125 had no protective effects. Furthermore, Weste blot analysis showed that the expres-sion of phosphorylated ERK was increased by silibinin, the expression of phos-phorylated p38 MAPK was decreased and total ERK, p38, JNK and phosphory-lated JNK MAPK did not change after treatment with both isoproterenol and silibinin. Furthermore, pretreatment of cardiac myocyte with PKC, Ras and Raf inhibitors significantly blocked ERK phosphorylation.Conclusion: Silibinin is suggested to protect isoproterenol-induced rat cardiac myocyte apoptosis by activating the tyrosine kinase pathway, PKC and MAPK pathways.