Objective To investigate the expression and significance of Maspin and IKKα in nasosinusoidal mucosa of rats with fungal rhinosinusitis (FRS). Methods A total of 40 SD rats were used to establish the FRS model, and randomly divided into nasal obstruction group, FRS group, immunosuppressive group and invasive FRS group, 10 rats in each group. Another 10 normal rats were used as control group. Mice in the control group were fed with normal diet. In the nasal obstruction group, the mice had only hemostatic cotton stuffed in the nasal cavity and injection of 0.9% NaCl in the abdominal and nasal cavities. In the FRS group, the mice were injected Aspergillus fumigatus spore suspension into the nasal cavity and 0.9% NaCl i.p. The mice of the immunosuppressive group were given cyclophosphamide i.p. and 0.9% NaCl injection into the nasal cavity. The invasive FRS group was injected with cyclophosphamide i.p. and Aspergillus fumigatus spore suspension into the nasal cavity. The serum levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression of Maspin and IKKα in nasosinusoidal mucosa was detected by immunohistochemical staining. The expression of Maspin mRNA and IKKα mRNA in the nasosinusoidal mucosa was detected by fluorescence quantitative PCR. Results The serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in different groups were significantly different (P< 0.05). The level of IL-6 in the FRS group was (69.3 ±10.9) ng/L, significantly higher than those in the control group, nasal obstruction group, immunosuppressive group and invasive FRS group[(45.2 ±7.1)ng/L, (46.4 ±6.7) ng/L, (21.3 ±4.5) ng/L, and (20.9 ±4.3 ng/L)] (P < 0.05). The level of TNF-α in the FRS group was (30.4 ±4.8) ng/L, significantly higher than those in the control group, nasal obstruction group, immunosuppressive group and invasive FRS group[(14.8 ±2.7) ng/L, (13.9 ±1.4) ng/L, (7.9 ±0.6) ng/L, and (7.8 ±0.4 ng/L)] (P < 0.05). The levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in the control group were significantly higher than those in the immunosuppressive group and invasive FRS group (P< 0.05). There was no significant difference between the immunosuppressive group and the invasive group (P> 0.05). Theresult of immunohistochemical staining showed that the protein expression of Maspin in the FRS group and invasive FRS group was significantly lower than that in the control group, nasal obstruction group and immunosuppressive group, while the expression of IKKα protein was significantly higher than that of control group, nasal obstruction group and immunosuppressive group (P< 0.05). The protein expression of Maspin in the invasive FRS group was significantly lower than that in the FRS group, by contrast, the expression of IKKα protein was significantly higher (P< 0.05). The PCRresult revealed that the expression levels of Maspin and IKKα mRNA were (0.217 ±0.013) and (0.193 ±0.012), significantly lower than that in the control, obstruction and immunosuppressive groups [(0.309 ±0.021),(0.302 ±0.017),and (0.293 ±0.02)](P< 0.05), while the expressions level of IKKα mRNA were significantly higher [(0.319 ±0.043),(0.384 ±0.048) vs (0.169 ±0.015),(0.171 ±0.018),and (0.175 ±0.019)](P< 0.05). Conclusions Down-regulation of Maspin expression after IKKα activation is the main cause of the onset of FRS, which may also be one of the mechanisms of invasive FRS.