Experimental Study on the Effects of Curcumin in Alleviating Oxidative Stress and Inducing Differentiation in Neural Stem Cells.

Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative disease that poses a serious threat to human health, is showing a worrying rise in incidence with the global trend of population aging. Among the many treatment options, stem cell therapy undoubtedly brings new hope for this persistent disease. Notably, curcumin (Cur) significantly protected C17.2 neural stem cells (NSCs), primarily by enhancing their resistance to oxidative stress. Based on these findings, the present study delved into the effects of Cur on NSCs, with a special focus on its mechanism of action in oxidative stress alleviation and cell differentiation promotion. The experimental results showed that under oxidative stress conditions, Cur-treated C17.2 cells not only exhibited enhanced survivability but also their reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels were significantly suppressed, whereas antioxidant indexes showed significant improvement. Remarkably, Cur also demonstrated the ability to promote the transdifferentiation of C17.2 cells to neurons and astrocytes, a process that was accompanied by a significant activation of the Wnt3α/β-catenin/Cyclin D1 signaling pathway. This finding provides new ideas for understanding the mechanism of Cur's role in the regulation of neuroplasticity and stem cell repair and reveals that the Wnt3α signaling pathway may become a key target for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Copyright © 2026 Chunyang Wu et al. International Journal of Food Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.