Objectives：To investigate the effects of phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase（PI3K） /protein kinaseB（AKT） signal pathway on cell proliferation and differentiation in human neuroblastoma SK-N-SH. Methods：Logarithimic phase SK-N-SH cells were subcultured into 96-well plates. The cells in 96-well plates were divided into inhibitor LY294002 group（A），agonist IGF-1 group（B），DMSO group（C），ddH2O group（D），blank group（E） and serum group（F）. After 24 h，different concentrations of inhibitor LY294002 were added into group A and the final concentrations were 20，40，50，60，100 ?滋mol/L，respectively. Group B was continued to be cultured with serum-free DMEM for 12 h，then treated with different concentrations（25，50，100，150，200 ng/ml） of agonist IGF-1（which final concentra－tions were 25，50，100，150，200 ng/ml）. The negative control group was added with DMSO or ddH2O with the same concentration of LY294002 or IGF-1. The blank group was only added with medium（100 ?滋l/well）. All cells were cultured in appropriate media at 37 ℃ in humidified，5%CO2 incubator. The effects of specific inhibitors LY294002 and PI3K/AKT agonist IGF-1 on cell proliferation were detected by MTT assay. Morphological changes were observed under inverted phase contrast microscope. mRNA expression of TrkA in SK-N-SH cells were detected using fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction（FQ-PCR）. Results：①MTT assay showed that the growth of SK-N-SH cells was dramatically inhibited by LY294002. Cell proliferation ability in LY294002 group（0.39±0.17） was lower than that in negative control DMSO group（0.78±0.21）（F=3.395，P=0.018）. The growth of SK-N-SH cells was promoted by insulin-like growth factors-1（IGF-1）. Cell proliferation ability in IGF-1 group（0.72±0.14） was higher than that in blank ddH2O group（0.43±0.08）（F=9.480，P=0.004）. ②There was no significant difference in cell differentiation morphology change between LY294002 group and IGF-1 group by microscope observations. ③FQ-PCR results showed that the expression of TrkA mRNA in LY294002 group（0.78±0.05） was lower than that in negative control group（1.56±0.02） and blank group（1.66±0.15）（F=81.89，P=0.000）. There were no statistical difference in the TrkA mRNA expression between negative control group and blank group（P=0.224）. And there were no statistical difference in the TrkA mRNA expression among IGF-1 group，ddH2O negative control group and blank group（F=0.27，P=0.770）. Conclusion：PI3K/AKT signal pathway may be involved in cell proliferation and differentiation of human neuroblastoma SK-N-SH cells. These findings propose the key gene of PI3K/AKT pathway as an expected molecular target for the therapy of human neuroblastoma.