Objective To investigate the efficiency of Trichostatin A (TSA) in inducing cell apoptosis and altering the Notch pathway genes expression in PANC-1 cells line.Methods The survival rate and apoptosis of PANC-1 cells were measured by MTT assay and Hoechst 33258 staining,respectively.mRNA expression levels of the genes,numb,gcn512,dll3,hes6,eaf2,cytohesins,in PANC-1 cells were assessed by real-time quantitive PCR.Western blot was used to measure the expression of bcl-2,bax,actived caspase-3 and NICD protein which was the biologically active form of Notch-1.Results After culturing with 0.1,0.2,and 0.4 μmol/L TSA for 24 hours,the cellular survival rate of PANC-1 cells significantly decreased to 72％,58％ and 39％,respectively.The survival rate of PANC-1 was negatively correlated to time length of culture with TSA.Increased apoptosis of PANC-1 cells after 12,24 and 36 h culture with TSA was detected by Hoechst 33258 staining.Western blotting showed that the expression of bax,actived caspase-3 and NICD protein increased while the bcl-2 protein decreased after culture with TSA.In real time quantitive PCR assessment,the mRNA expression of numb and hes6 in PANC-1 cells were upregulated by TSA (P ＜ 0.05),while the mRNA expression of gcn512 and dll3 were down-regulated by TSA (P ＜ 0.05).While mRNA expressions of eaf2 and cytohesin1,2,3,4 were not affected by TSA.Conclusions TSA induces apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1.The Notch signal pathway may be involved in inducing cellular apoptosis of PANC-1 when cultured with TSA.