The purpose of this experiment was to explore the effects of sorbic acid(SA) on proliferation, IGF-1 secretion, GH/IGF system and glucose and lipid metabolism-related genes mRNA expression in C2C12 cells. C2C12 cells were exposed to different doses of SA(0, 0.1, 1.0, 10.0 and 100.0 μmol/L）to measure cell proliferation by MTT assay, IGF-1 secretion by RIA assay and transcript levels by qPCR assay. Results indicated that: 1) SA(10.0 μmol/L) significantly promoted(P<0.05) proliferation of cell cultured with 10% fetal bovine serum(1 and 2 d) or without serum(4 and 5 d). 2) IGF-1 secretion was significantly suppressed(P<0.05) by 0.1, 1.0 or 100.0 μmol/L SA in serum-free cultured C2C12 cells. 3) Expressions of IGF-1R, GHR and CPT1b mRNA were significantly up-regulated in serum-free cultured C2C12 cells treated with 1.0 μmol/L SA. The increasing trend of IGFBP3 (P=0.09), PDK4 (P=0.10) and PGC1 α(P=0.10) transcript levels were also observed in serum-free cultured C2C12 cells by 1.0 μmol/L SA treatment. This suggested that SA could increase proliferation and GH/IGF system and glucose and lipid metabolism-related genes mRNA expression but depress IGF-1 secretion in C2C12 cells.