Recombinant human granulocyte-colony stimulating factor(hG-CSF)has been shown to protect the nervous system after brain ischemia.However,the neuroprotective mechanism of hG-CSF remains unclear.The present study established a rat model of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion and subcutaneously injected recombinant hG-CSF after reperfusion for 2 hours.Cerebral cortical protein was extracted following 14 days of reperfusion and subjected to two-dimensional electrophoresis.In brain ischemic rats,56 different protein spots were screened,including 17 that were upregulated and 17 that were downregulated,compared with the sham-surgery group.Matrix assisted laser desorption ionization/time of flight mass spectrometry was used to determine peptide mass fingerprinting.Following a National Center for Biotechnology Information database search and confirmation with the Swiss-Prot database,19 spots were identified as known proteins.Following hG-CSF treatment,35 different protein spots were found,including 16 that were downregulated and 19 that were upregulated.Six were known proteins,including dihydropyrimidinase-associated protein 2,glial fibrillary acidic protein,endomucin,Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor,Rab GDP dissociation inhibitor and guanine-nucleotide-binding protein.Results indicate that hG-CSF is involved in neuroprotection after brain ischemia,possibly by regulating the expression of various neural regeneration-associated proteins at the subacute stage.