OBJECTIVE To investigate whether limb ischemic preconditioning (LIP) pretreatment has protective effects to the brain after cerebral ischemic injury by investigating the effects of LIP pretreatment on anti-inflammatory response in rats. METHODS Seventy-two Sprague Dawley rats were divided into 3 groups: experimental group (n=30), ischemic group (n=30) and control group (n=12). Six samples from five timepoints (6h, 12h, 24h, 48h and 72h after surgical manipulation) were collected for the experimental and ischemic groups, while other twelve animals were untreated and used as controls. The models with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) were obtained by thread blocking and the models with cerebral ischemic tolerance (IT) were obtained by LIP pretreatment. The determination of histopathological changes, real-time quantitative PCR (QTR-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to observe the expression of interleukin-17 (IL-17) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). RESULTS The pathological change in experimental group was not as obvious as ischemia group. The results of QRT-PCR demonstrated that the expression of IL-17 and IL-6 were reduced significantly in experimental group. Significant different in the expression of IL-17 and IL-6 were found between ischemia and experimental groups at 12h、24h and 48h time points (P<0.01). The data of ELISA suggested that the expression of IL-17 and IL-6 were reduced obviously in experimental group. Significant different in the expression of IL-17 were found between ischemia and experimental groups at 12h、24h and 48h time points (P<0.05), while significant different in the expression of IL-6 were at 24h and 48h time points (P<0.05). CONCLUSION LIP pretreatment could induce ischemic tolerance, probably by providing obviously anti-inflammatory effects and protective function for the followed ischemic injury.