The radiation-induced apoptosis was studied for two human cancer cell lines (KB cells, RPMI 2650 cells) and the human gingival fibroblast cell line (HGF-1 cells). The single irradiation of 2, 10, 20Gy was done with 241.5 cGylmin dose rate using the ¹³⁷Cs MK cell irradiator. The cells were stained with propidium iodide and examined under the fluoro-microscope and assayed with the flow cytometry a day after irradiation. Also, the LDH assay was done to determine the amount of necrotic cells. The obtained results were as follows: 1. On the fluoro-microscope, many fragmented nuclei were detected in the KB, RPMI 2650, and HGF-1 cells after irradiation. 2. On the DNA content histogram obtained from the flow cytometry, the percentages of the pre-Gl peak of the control and 2, 10 and 20Gy irradiation group were 4.5, 55.0, 52.3, and 66.6％ on KB cells, 2.7, 3.3, 31.8, and 32.6％ on RPMI 2650 cells and 2.8, 21.8, 30.4, and 40.2％ on HGF-1 cells respectively. 3. The number of Gl-stage cells was abruptly decreased after 2Gy irradiation on KB cells and 10Gy irradiation on RPMI 2650 cells, But there was a slight decrease without regard to irradiation dose on HGF-1 cells. 4. There was no significantly different absorbance in extracellular LDH assay along the experimental cell lines.