In recent years, it has been proved that many kinds of proteins have protective effect on plant materials during cryopreservation. In this study, catalase (CAT) and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) were chosen to verify their functions when Euonymus fortunei shoot tips were cryopreserved. They were added to loading, plant vitrification solution 2 (PVS2) and unloading solutions, separately. Shoot tip survival was evaluated using 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining, and effective treatments were selected for a turning-green testing. Various concentrations of CAT added to the loading solution significantly improved survival of shoot tips after liquid nitrogen treatment, with 100% of the apical meristem being stained red, compared to control 94.7 ± 2.7% (p < 0.05). Among them CAT at 400 U ml^-1 significantly improved survival of shoot tips (including apical meristem with 3-4 pairs of leaf primordia), with 47.3 ± 16.4% of the shoot tips being stained red, compared to control 14.2 ± 3.3% (p < 0.05), and CAT at 200 U ml^-1 showed the best improvement in turning-green rates of the shoot tips (57.9 ± 2.2%) which significantly differed (p < 0.001) from the control variant (26.5 ± 0.8%). However, CAT added to PVS2 and unloading solutions, and MDH added to those three solutions did not show any significant effects on survival of the shoot tips, even the apical meristems. According to the important role of CAT in oxidative stress, these results suggest that oxidative stress probably exists following cryopreservation and attempts for its prior prevention would be an effective countermeasure.