FIG. 5.

Functional role of p38 and ERK1/2 in regulating IL-1β (A), IL-6 (B), TNF-α (C), IL-10 (D), and IL-12 p40 (E) production by T. denticola-stimulated (MOI = 10) monocytes. Cells were pretreated for 2 h with the MAPK kinase (MEK) inhibitor U0126 (50 μM), the p38 inhibitor SB203580 (10 μM), or the DMSO control (0.01%). After a 20-h stimulation, cytokine levels in cell supernatants were measured by ELISA. An asterisk indicates statistical significance at a P value of <0.05 compared to results for T. denticola-stimulated cells. The data represent the arithmetic means ± standard deviations for five separate experiments.