Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an opportunistic parasite that can infect the central nervous system (CNS), causing severe toxoplasmosis and behavioral cognitive impairment. Mortality is high in immunocompromised individuals with toxoplasmosis, most commonly due to reactivation of infection in the CNS. There are still no effective vaccines and drugs for the prevention and treatment of toxoplasmosis. There are five developmental stages for T. gondii to complete life cycle, of which the tachyzoite and bradyzoite stages are the key to the acute and chronic infection. In this study, to better understanding of how T. gondii interacts with the host CNS at different stages of infection, we constructed acute and chronic infection models of T. gondii in astrocytes, and used label-free proteomics to detect the proteome changes before and after infection, respectively. A total of 4676 proteins were identified, among which 163 differentially expressed proteins (fold change ≥ 1.5 or ≤ 0.67 and p-value ≤ 0.05) including 109 up-regulated proteins and 54 down-regulated proteins in C8-TA vs C8 group, and 719 differentially expressed proteins including 495 up-regulated proteins and 224 down-regulated proteins in C8-BR vs C8-TA group. After T. gondii tachyzoites infected astrocytes, differentially expressed proteins were enriched in immune-related biological processes to promote the formation of bradyzoites and maintain the balance of T. gondii, CNS and brain. After T. gondii bradyzoites infected astrocytes, the differentially expressed proteins up-regulated the host's glucose metabolism, and some up-regulated proteins were strongly associated with neurodegenerative diseases. These findings not only provide new insights into the psychiatric pathogenesis of T. gondii, but also provide potential targets for the treatment of acute and chronic Toxoplasmosis. Author summary: Toxoplasma gondii is an extremely widespread and a worldwide health problem protozoon, which can infect the central nervous system, inducing acute and chronic infection and causing severe toxoplasmosis and behavioral cognitive impairment. However, there is still no effective vaccines to prevent infection, drugs used to treat the acute infected individuals have a lot of limitations, and no drugs to treat chronic infected individuals. In this study, we established an acute and chronic infection model of T. gondii in astrocytes, and then used label-free quantitative proteomics to detect the proteome changes before and after infection, respectively. We aimed to understand the molecular mechanism and find special targets of T. gondii infection at different stages by analyzing the biological processes and signaling pathways, which the differential expressed proteins were involved in. Our study may provide new insights for further exploring the parasite-host interaction, and new targets for developing anti-Toxoplasma vaccines and drugs for the treatment of acute and chronic toxoplasmosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]