Objective To study the biological effects of cathepsin B phosporotbioated antisense oligodeoxynucleotide on human osteosarcoma cell line MG-63 after transfection. Methods A 18-mer phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (ASODN) targeted against the cathepsin B mRNA was transfected into the human osteosarcoma cell line MG-63 by lipofectamine 2000. The sense and nonsense oligodeoxynucleotides to cathepsin B and blank vector were used as controls. The expression of cathepsin B mRNA was examined by RT-PCR and the expression of cathepsin B was examined by Western blot. The invasive capability of MG-63 cells was evaluated by the boydern chamber assay. Results The expression of cathcpsin B was obviously inhibited in antlsense oligodeoxynucleotide treated cells compared with the control cells. The number of invading MG-63 cells was significantly lower in the ASODN-treated groups than that in the control groups. Conclusion The cathepsin B ASODN significantly inhibits the expression of cathepsin B and invasive ability of MG-63 cell in osteosarcoma.