title: Curcumin Stimulates Proliferation of Spinal Cord Neural Progenitor Cells via a Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling Pathway.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aims of our study are to evaluate the effect of curcumin on spinal cord neural progenitor cell (SC-NPC) proliferation and to clarify the mechanisms of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase signaling pathways in SC-NPCs.
  
  
  METHODS
  We established cultures of SC-NPCs, extracted from the spinal cord of Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 250 g to 350 g. We measured proliferation rates of SC-NPCs after curcumin treatment at different dosage. The immuno-blotting method was used to evaluate the MAP kinase signaling protein that contains extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs), p38, c-Jun NH2-terminal kinases (JNKs) and β-actin as the control group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Curcumin has a biphasic effect on SC-NPC proliferation. Lower dosage (0.1, 0.5, 1 µM) of curcumin increased SC-NPC proliferation. However, higher dosage decreased SC-NPC proliferation. Also, curcumin stimulates proliferation of SC-NPCs via the MAP kinase signaling pathway, especially involving the p-ERK and p-38 protein. The p-ERK protein and p38 protein levels varied depending on curcumin dosage (0.5 and 1 µM, p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Curcumin can stimulate proliferation of SC-NPCs via ERKs and the p38 signaling pathway in low concentrations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Sihoon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Son
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Kyoung-Tae
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Dae-Chul
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Hye-Jeong
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Joo-Kyung
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Sung
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae-Sung
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Bae
keywords: Curcumin; Mitogen activated protein kinase; Spinal cord neural progenitor cell