Fig. 5. Representative gel photography and densitometric analysis data illustrated the effects of human placental multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (hPMSCs) on regulating the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK), including extracellular regulated kinase, c-jun N-terminal kinase, and p38 MAPK, in RAW264.7 cells using immunoblotting assay. The MAPK protein concentrations were normalized by β-Actin. Human placental MSCs (cell number: hPMSCs vs . RAW264.7 cells = 1:10²) were added to RAW264.7 cells at 4 h before lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration. NS-398 (1 μM) was added at 30 min before hPMSCs. LPS+R is the RAW264.7 cells plus LPS (100 ng/ml) group; LPS+R+S is the RAW264.7 cells plus hPMSCs plus LPS group; LPS+R+S+N is the RAW264.7 cells plus hPMSCs plus NS-398 plus LPS group. All data were derived from three independent experiments performed in duplicates (n = 6) and analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA followed by multiple comparisons with the Bonferroni correction for the significance level. Data were mean ± standard deviations. *P < 0.017 versus  the LPS+R group. #P < 0.017 the LPS+R+S+N group versus  the LPS+R+S group. LPS = lipopolysaccharide; MAPK = mitogen-activated protein kinase; N = NS-398; p-ERK = phosphorylated extracellular regulated kinase; p-JNK = phosphorylated c-jun N-terminal kinase; p-p38 MAPK = phosphorylated p38-mitogen-activated protein kinase; R = RAW264.7; S = human placental multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells, or hPMSCs.