AIM To study effect of TanshinoneⅡA(TanⅡA) on stromal cell-derived factor-1(SDF-1) and it's receptors CXCR4 in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM).METHODS Sixty-two patients with T2DM were randomly divided into treatment and control groups.TanⅡA 40 mg·d-1 was given to patients in treatment group for 2 weeks.The level of plasma SDF-1,the positive rate of CXCR4 on endothelial progenitor cells(EPCs)and the number of EPCs were determined pre-and post-treatment.RESULTS All parameters had no significant differences between 2 groups before observation(P0.05).Increasing SDF-1,EPCs and CXCR4 had significant difference in the treatment group pre-and post-treatment(P0.05 or P0.01).The parameters had no significant differences between before and after observation in the control group(P0.05).There was a significant positive correlation between EPCs and SDF-1(r=0.223,P0.05).CONCLUSION TanⅡA can improve vascular endothelial function in T2DM,which may be due to elevating the level of plasma SDF-1 and increasing the expression of CXCR4 on EPCs,and inducing EPCs mobilization from bone marrow to peripheral blood.