Aim To investigate the effect of triptolide ( TP) on human colorectal cancer HCT116 cell prolif-eration and explore the potential mechanism of TP in treating colon cancer. Methods MTT assay was used for estimating the survival rates of HCT116 cells ex-posed to different concentrations and different duration time of TP. Western blot ( WB ) was used for testing the expression of LC3-Ⅱ. MDC staining was employed to detect cell autophagy. Flow cytometry ( FCM) was applied to test the effects of TP on cell apoptosis. Re-sults TP could inhibit cell proliferation in HCT116 cells. The expression of LC3-Ⅱwas enhanced with the increase of the concentration of TP after exposed to dif-ferent concentrations of TP for 48 h and the duration time of TP after exposed to 40 nmol·L-1 TP,and the number of acid autophagic vacuoles in HCT116 cells had increased, which was observed by fluorescence mi-croscope. The HCT116 cells apoptotic rates in TP group had decreased compared to control group and de-creased significantly compared to TP +3-MA group. The HCT116 cells apoptotic rates in TP group had in-creased compared to control group and increased signif-icantly compared to TP+RAPA group. Conclusion TP could inhibit the proliferation of human colon canc-er HCT116 cells and induce apoptosis in HCT116 cells, which indicates that synergy may exist between autophagy and apoptosis.