In the present study, we intended to investigate whether cationic polyamines including poly-L-Iysine (PLL) and poly-L-arginine (PLA) induce cytotoxicities to cultured hamster tracheal surface epithelial (HTSE) cells. Confluent HTSE cells were chased for 30 min in the presence of PLL or PLA of different molecular weights. Possible cytotoxicities of PLL or PLA were assessed by measuring both Lactate Dehy- drogenase (LDH) release during treatment and the number of floating cells after treatment and by checking the possible changes on the morphology of HTSE cells during treatment. The results were as follows: in the case of treatment of PLL or rLA of which molecular weight is about 78,000 and 92,000, respectively, (1) there was significant release of LDH during treatment, (2) the number of floating cells were significantly increased after treatment and (3) there were significant changes on the morphology of cultured HTSE cells. However, in the case of PLL or PLA of which molecular weight is under 10,000 (about 9,600 and 8,900, respectively), no significant signs of cytotoxicities mentioned above were detected. We found that cationic polyamines might be non-toxic under specific range of molecular weights and suggest that the cytotoxicity of cationic polyamine might depend on the molecular sizes of each cationic polyamine.