Ghrelin protects adult rat hippocampal neural stem cells from excessive autophagy during oxygen-glucose deprivation.

Ghrelin functions as a neuroprotective agent and saves neurons from various insults include ischemic injury. However, it remains to be elucidated whether ghrelin protects neuronal cells against ischemic injury-induced excessive autophagy. Autophagy is required for the maintenance of neural stem cell homeostasis. However, regarding autophagic cell death, it is commonly assumed that excessive autophagy leads to self-elimination of mammalian cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential neuroprotection effects of ghrelin from excessive autophagy in adult rat hippocampal neural stem cells (NSCs). Oxygen-Glucose Deprivation (OGD) strongly induces autophagy in adult rat hippocampal NSCs. Ghrelin treatment inhibited OGD-induced cell death of adult rat hippocampal NSCs assessed by cell-counting-kit-8 assay. Ghrelin also suppressed OGD-induced excessive autophagy activity. The protective effect of ghrelin was accompanied by an increased expression levels of Bcl-2, p-62 and decreased expression level of LC3-II, Beclin-1 by Western blot. Furthermore, ghrelin reduced autophagosome formation and number of GFP-LC3 transfected puncta. In conclusion, our data suggest that ghrelin protects adult rat hippocampal NSCs from excessive autophagy in experimental stroke (oxygen-glucose deprivation) model. Regulating autophagic activity may be a potential optimizing target for promoting adult rat hippocampal NSCs based therapy for stroke.