A Lactobacillus brevis CGMCC 1306 isolated from fresh milk without pasteurization was found to have higher glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) activity. An effective isolation and purification procedure of GAD from a cell-free extract of Lactobacillus brevis was developed, and the procedure included four steps: 30%-90% saturation (NH4)(2)SO4 fractional precipitation, Q sepharose FF anion-exchange chromatography, sephacryl S-200 gel filtration, and resource Q anion-exchange chromatography. Using this protocol, the purified GAD was demonstrated to possess electrophoretic homogeneity via SDS-PAGE. The purification fold and activity recovery of GAD were 43.78 and 16.95%, respectively. The molecular weight of the purified GAD was estimated to be approximately 62 kDa via SDS-PAGE. The optimum pH and temperature of the purified GAD were 4.4 and 3 degrees C, respectively. The purified GAD had a half-life of 50min at 45 degrees C and the K-m value of the enzyme from Lineweaver-Burk plot was found to be 8.22. 5'-pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) had little effect on the regulation of its activity.