The present research aims to investigate the inhibition effect of taurine on the apoptosis of pancreatic islet cells induced by Streptozotocin (STZ). One hundred male Wistar rats weighing 180-200 g were randomly divided into two groups, rats in the experimental were intraperitoneally injected with 2% STZ (50 mg/kg bw, dissolved in 0.1 mmol/L pH 4.2 citrate buffer), rats in the control group were injected with the same volume of citrate buffer. Rats with the fasting blood glucose level higher than 16.7 mmol/L were selected and randomly divided into four groups: Rats in M group were STZ-induced diabetes rats, rats in T1, T2, and T3 groups were intragastrically administered with taurine (dissolved in 0.5% sodium carboxymethyl cellulose as thickening agent) once a day for 4 weeks with the contents of 0.6 g/kg, 1.2 g/kg, and 2.4 g/kg bw, respectively, while rats in group C and M were given the same amount of thickening agent as T2 group. Four weeks later, pancreatic tissues were fixed and processed for paraffin section. The results showed that STZ induced a significant increase in apoptotic rate of pancreatic islet cells, up-regulated the expression of bax and Fas and down-regulated the expression of Bcl-2, which were significantly blocked by taurine (P < 0.05). The results indicated that taurine could significantly restrain apoptosis of pancreatic islet cells induced by STZ.