The present study was performed to examine whether Endothelial-monocyte-activating polypeptide II (EMAP II) could inhibit glioma growth by inducing rat brain glioma C6 cells apoptosis. The results revealed that the EMAP II decreased cell viability of rat C6 glioma cells in a time-dependent manner. Apoptotic proportion was increased gradually after EMAP II. EMAP II induced the decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential and the release of cytochrome c into the cytosol, followed by activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3. Meanwhile, EMAP II-induced apoptosis was accompanied by an increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The significant up-regulation in the expressions of Bax and Apaf-1 as well as down-regulation in the expression of Bcl-2 was observed. The time course change of ROS was prior to the changes of above investigated indexes. All of these results strongly suggest that EMAP II could induce rat C6 glioma cells apoptosis via the mitochondria( pathway, and ROS, Bax/Bcl-2 might be involved in this processing. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.