Abstract： Objective To investigate the anti-tumor effect and potential mechanism of kaempferol on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma(ESCC)cells.Methods CCK-8,colony for-mation and flow cytometry were used to determine the effect of kaempferol on the proliferation and apoptosis of ECA-109 cells.Transwell assay was used to detect cell invasion.Western blotting was employed to measure the protein expression levels.Results Compared with the 0 μmol/L kaempfer-ol group,the 40 μmol/L and 60 μmol/L kaempferol groups had significantly inhibited proliferation and invasion of ECA-109 cells and enhanced apoptosis.Moreover,kaempferol(40 μmol/L and 60 μmol/L)had significantly decreased expression levels of proliferating cell nuclear antigen(PCNA)and Ki67,and lower phosphorylation levels of phosphatidylin-ositol-3-kinase(PI3K)and protein kinase B(AKT),and increased expression levels of pro-apoptosis-related proteins.In addition,PI3K activator 740Y-P reversed the regulatory effect of kaempferol on proliferation,invasion and ap-optosis of ECA-109 cells.Conclusion Kaempferol inhibits the proliferation,invasion and induces the apoptosis of ECA-109 cells by inhibiting PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.