Curcumin pretreatment prevents hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidative stress through enhanced mitochondrial function and deactivation of Akt/Erk signaling pathways in rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)-based therapy has emerged as a desirable modality for the treatment of tissue injury with promising therapeutic effects; however, low survival rate of transplanted cells due to harsh microenvironment with hypoxia and oxidative stress results in hampered therapeutic benefits of this therapy. Curcumin, a natural bioactive product, is a dietary component which has gained increasing attention owing to its beneficial health properties. Here, we reported the protective effects of curcumin pretreatment on BMSCs injury induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which was used as ROS source of oxidative stress in vitro. We found that curcumin pretreatment remarkably inhibited H2O2-induced cell viability reduction, LDH leakage, and cell apoptosis in BMSCs. Moreover, curcumin pretreatment prevented H2O2-induced mitochondrial dysfunction via suppressing adenosine triphosphate loss, reactive oxygen species accumulation, and membrane potential decline. In addition, curcumin pretreatment markedly reduced the phosphorylation levels of Akt and Erk1/2. Taken together, our investigations demonstrated that curcumin pretreatment conferred BMSCs the ability to survive from H2O2-induced oxidative stress, which might attribute to its prevention of mitochondrial dysfunction and deactivation of Akt and Erk1/2 signaling pathways. Thus, this study sheds more light on the pharmacological mechanisms of curcumin, and suggests that BMSCs preconditioned with curcumin might be an effective way for cell therapy in tissue repair treatment.