Objective: To probe into the protective mechanism of amyloid-beta protein precursor 17 peptide on nerve, and provide theoretical basis for the treatment of Alzheimer disease (AD). Data sources: A computer based online search for articles about amyloid-β protein precursor between 1987 and 2003 was conducted in Medline with the key words of "amyloid precursor protein, Alzheimer's disease" etc., and the language was limited to English. Meanwhile, CNKI was searched for relevant Chinese articles between 1999 and 2004 with the key words of "amyloid precursor protein, Alzheimer disease". Relevant books were searched manually. Study selection: Data were checked in the first trial, and literatures related to amyloid precursor protein and AD were collected, while repetitive studies were excluded. Data extraction: A total of 29 relevant articles were collected, in which 12 were in Chinese and 17 were in English. Data synthesis: There was protective effect of amyloid-β protein precursor 17 peptide manifested in experiments of both in vivo and in vitro, which could up regulated the expression of other neurotrophic factor (NTF), promote the expression of relevant protein in survival signal bypass, inhibit the expression of apoptotic factors in neural cells and influence the protein metabolism of neural protein, and thus ameliorating the lesion of ultramicrostructure in neural system of model animals as well as enhance the learning and memory ability of model animals, so as to achieve the protective effects on nerve. Conclusion: One of the effective mechanism on the expression of NTF is the protective effect of amyloid-β protein precursor 17 peptide on neurons. Amyloid-β protein precursor 17 peptide affects all procedures of survival signal bypasses in neural cells. The promoting effect on survival of cells is another effective mechanism of the protective effect of amyloid-β protein precursor 17 peptide on neurons.