OBJECTIVE: To study the inhibitory effects of recombinant adenovirus Ad-GFP-C197, which prepared by adenovirus vector system-loading human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) C fragment (C197), on the proliferation of 3 kinds of tumor cells in vitro. METHODS: Ad-GFP-C197 was amplified and purified with HEK293 cells. Human gastric cancer cells SGC7901, human breast cancer cells MCF7 and human colorectal cancer cells CaCO2 were infected by Ad-GFP-C197 respectively. Using blank adenovirus carrier (Ad-GFP) as reference, the protein expression of C197 in 3 kinds of tumor cells infected by Ad-GFP-C197 was detected by Western blot assay. The inhibitory effects of Ad-GFP-C197 on 3 kinds of tumor cells were detected by MTT assay. The cell proliferation curve was drawn and the proliferation inhibition rate was calculated. RESULTS: The protein expression of C197 was not detected in 3 kinds of tumor cells infected by Ad-GFP, while significant protein expression of C197 was found in above cells infected by Ad-GFP-C197. The proliferation curves of the 3 kinds of tumor cells infected by Ad-GFP-C197 were significantly inhibited with the time extended, and the proliferation inhibitory rate reached 37.31%-41.42%. CONCLUSIONS: Ad-GFP-C197 shows significant inhibitory effects on the proliferation of SGC7901, MCF7 and CaCO2 cells, which is rapid to make up for the slow effect of other telomerase inhibitors.