In our previous study, we found that the transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta1 enhanced the metastatic and invasive potential of gastric cancer cells. Proteomics was employed in this study to further illustrate the underlying molecular mechanisms. After two-dimensional electrophoresis, image analysis, spot identification, protein identification and database analysis, three proteins, namely, glutathione-S-transferase-pi (GST-pi), cofilin and heat shock protein 27 (HSP27), were found to be up-regulated in TGF-beta1 treated SGC-7901 cells. The findings were further confirmed by Western blot analysis. These results suggested that GST-pi, cofilin and HSP27 might participate in enhanced invasive potential induced by TGF-beta1.