Stem cell survival post transplantation determines the efficiency of stem cell treatment, which develops as a novel potential therapy for several central nervous system (CNS) diseases in recent decades of yeas. The engrafted stem cells face the damage of oxidative stress, inflammation and immune response at the lesion point in host. Among the pathology, oxidative stress directs stem cells to apoptosis and even death through several signalling pathways and DNA damage. However, the in detail mechanism of stem cell survival from oxidative stress has not revealed clearly. Here in this study, we used hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to induced the oxidative damage on neural stem cells (NSCs). The damage was in consequence demonstrated involving the activation of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) and NF-κB/p65 signalling pathways. Further application of the pharmacological inhibitors respectively targeting at each signalling indicated an upper streaming role of HSP90 upon NF-κB/p65 on NSCs survival. Pre-inhibition of HSP90 with the specific inhibitor displayed a significant protection on NSCs against oxidative stress. In conclusion, inhibition of HSP90 would attenuate NF-κB/p65 activation by oxidative induction and promote NSCs survival from oxidative damage. The HSP90/NF-κB mechanism provides a new evidence on rescuing NSCs from oxidative stress, and also promotes the stem cell application on CNS pathologies
