Meanwhile, we found that Ginseng pretreatment significantly enhanced expression levels of Nrf2 downstream cytoprotective and antioxidative proteins including NQO1, HO1, SOD2 and GPx1 at the early stage of ischemic stroke onset in WT, and this was completely abolished in the Nrf2−/− mice. The gene discussed is NQO1; the disease is ischemic stroke.