Corilagin,a gallotannin,is one of the major active components of many ethnopharmacological plants.In previous research,we had found corilagin inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma cell and ovarian cancer cells proliferation by inducing G2/M phase arrest.Recently,we found corilagin could induce the apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma cell.In the AO/EB and Hoechst33258 staining assay we found hepatocellular carcinoma cell treated with corilagin showed apoptotic morphology including cell shape became round and chromatin shrinking.The similar result was observed in the flow cytometry analysis.The apoptotic ratio of hepatocellular carcinoma cell was 24.1%when treated with corilagin of 37.5 μM.Further study showed corialgin reduced the mitochondrial transmembrane potential and increased the rate of release of cytochrome c led to the activation of Caspase-9、Caspase-3 and the cleavage of PARP in cytoplasm indicating the activation of mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.Moreover,corilagin also could activate Caspase-8 which is an important member of death receptor pathway of cell apoptosis.In addition,corilagin induced the upregulation of p53 and downregulation of Bcl-2 and Survivin which was also contributed to the anti-tumor effect of corilagin.These results suggest that corilagin signifcantly induces the apoptosis of hepatocellular carcinoma cell through both mitochondrial apoptotic pathway and death receptor pathway.