Abstract: Objective To test the toxic effects of evodiamine, rutaecarpine, evodin and synephrine on human embryonic kidney 293 cells(HEK293). Methods MTT assay was used to test the cell viability of evodiamine, rutaecarpine, evodin and synephrine on nephrocytes. The contents of LDH in nephrocytes supernatant were detected.After given the four monomers, morphological changes of nephrocytes were observed by inverted phase contrast microscope. Results The MTT assay showed that 8.3～33.2μgmL^-1 evodiamine,5<40μgmL^-1 evodin mL^-1 rutaecarpine and 50～200gcould inhibit HEK-293 cells viability obviously( P<0.01 or P<0.05), while synephrine had no inhibition on HEK-293 cells viability. 8.3～33.2gμ·gmL^-1 evodin could increase mL^-1 evodiamine,5～20gmL^-1 rutaecarpine and 50～200gμthe contents of LDH in nephrocytes supernatant( P<0.01 or P<0.05), while synephrine couldn't. Cell morphology showed that evodiamine, evodin could damage the shapes of nephrocytes and cells mortality raised as the increase of their concentration. On the other side, evodiamine and synephrine had no influence. Conclusion Evodiamine, rutaecarpine and evodin may cause nephrocytes toxicity while synephrine could not.

Key words: evodiamine, rutaecarpine, evodin, synephrine, nephrotoxicity