Glucosinolates and their degradation products are important secondary metabolite of cruciferous vegetables with the anti-cancer function. The Methylthioalkylmalate synthases encoded by various MAM genes are involved in glucosinolate side-chain elongation. MAM1 catalyzes the aliphatic glucosinolate synthesis with short-chain, while MAM3 catalyzes that with long-chain. In this study, the glucosinolate content and the expression of MAM genes were analyzed in Chinese cabbage and cabbage inbred lines during seedling and rosette stages, in order to associate MAM gene expression with the accumulation of beneficial glucosinolates. The results showed that the average glucosinolate content in cabbage was higher than that of Chinese cabbage from seedling to rosette stage. The content of 5C and 4C aliphatic glucosinolates (GBN and NAP) were predominant in Chinese cabbage, whereas the main glucosinolates in cabbage were 3C and 4C aliphatic glucosinolates (IBE, SIN and GRA). The anti-cancer components SIN and GRA were significantly higher in cabbage than those of Chinese cabbage. The genome annotations of Chinese cabbage and cabbage revealed seven MAM paralogous genes respectively. By analyzing the expression levels of MAMs, a significant difference in the relative expression level of MAM1 and MAM3 between Chinese cabbage and cabbage was detected. The expression level of BraMAM1.1 and BraMAM1.2 in Chinese cabbage was significantly lower than that of BoMAM1.1 and BoMAM1.2 in cabbage, while the expression level of BraMAM3.2 and BraMAM3.3 was significantly higher than that of BoMAM3.1. Moreover, the content of 3C aliphatic glucosinolates in cabbage was positively correlated with the expression of BoMAM1.1, and the content of 5C aliphatic glucosinolates in Chinese cabbage was positively correlated with the expression of BraMAM3.2. Collectively we speculated that the low expression of BraMAM1.1 and the high expression of BraMAM3.2 may respond to the low accumulation of 3C aliphatic glucosinolates (SIN) and the high accumulation of 5C aliphatic glucosinolates (GBN) in Chinese cabbage.