Abstract： Objective To explore the effects of human neuromelanin (NM) and doparmine melanin (DAM) on ferritin mRNA expression under oxidative stress in dopaminergic neuronal cells and glial cells. Methods SK-N-SH and U373 were chosen as models of human neuronal and glial cells.Fenton reagent (FR) was used as a direct inducer of oxidative stress,and human neuromelanin (NM) or dopamine melanin (DAM) were added to the cultures at the same time. Iron chelator desferrioxamine (DFO) was added in some experiments parallel.The changes of ferfitin mRNA expression were detected by real-time quantitative PCR. Results Ferritin mRNA in SK-N-SH cells were significantly up-regulated with FR or FR+DAM treatment than untreated cells,and FR+DAM induced more Ferritin mRNA expression than FR+hNM did.These differences are significant (P＜0.05).With DFO,ferritin mRNA expressions in FR, NM,FR+NM, DAM treated SK-N-SH cells were decreased significantly comparing to DFO free cultures(P＜0.05).While in U373 cells,the expressions of Ferritin mRNA had no significant differences with or without FR,NM, DAM, FR+NM or FR+DAM treatment (P＜0.05).Furthermore,Ferritin mRNA expressions showed no significant differences in U373 cells with or without DFO treatment(P＜0.05). Conclusions Ferritin has a protective effect on cells,DAM could not used to produce PD model.