Abstract: Objective To observe the effect of the quercetin on autophagy of RSC96 cultured in high glucose．Methods RSC96 cells were cultured with high glucose or quercetin．Ultrastructure were performed using transmission electron microscopy. The expression of beclin1, LC3Ⅱ, phosphorylation of Akt (p-Akt), and phosphorylation of mTOR (p-mTOR) were detected by immunofluorescence and Western blot．Real-time fluorescent PCR analysis showed that the level of Beclin1-mRNA and LC3-mRNA Results Quercetin significantly alleviated the pathological morphology of RSC96 cells and up-regulated the Beclin1 and LC3-Ⅱexpressions（P＜0.05，P＜0.01）, increased autophagosome, but down-regulated the p-Akt and p-mTOR expressions（P＜0.05，P＜0.01）．Conclusions Quercetin up-regulated autophagy on the RSC96 cultured in high glucose by the pathway of Akt-mTOR.

Key words: autophagy, quercetin, RSC96, high glucose