Physiological Features of the Neural Stem Cells Obtained from an Animal Model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Their Response to Antioxidant Curcumin

The most prevalent rare genetic disease affecting young individuals is spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which is caused by a loss-of-function mutation in the telomeric gene survival motor neuron (SMN) 1. The high heterogeneity of the SMA pathophysiology is determined by the number of copies of SMN2, a separate centromeric gene that can transcribe for the same protein, although it is expressed at a slower rate. SMA affects motor neurons. However, a variety of different tissues and organs may also be affected depending on the severity of the condition. Novel pharmacological treatments, such as Spinraza, Onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi, and Evrysdi, are considered to be disease modifiers because their use can change the phenotypes of the patients. Since oxidative stress has been reported in SMA-affected cells, we studied the impact of antioxidant therapy on neural stem cells (NSCs) that have the potential to differentiate into motor neurons. Antioxidants can act through various pathways; for example, some of them exert their function through nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (NRF2). We found that curcumin is able to induce positive effects in healthy and SMA-affected NSCs by activating the nuclear translocation of NRF2, which may use a different mechanism than canonical redox regulation through the antioxidant-response elements and the production of antioxidant molecules.