Autophagy and apoptosis have been known to be interconnected positively or negatively; however, the molecular mechanisms mediating these two cel-lular processes are not fully understood. In the present study, we demon-strated that the exposure of L929 cells to oridonin led to intracellular reactive oxygen species generation, followed by lipid peroxidation, as well as decreases in superoxide dismutase and glutathione activities.