Fig. 4. IL-1ra expression in MCAo rats treated with IV-hUMSCs.

a mRNA microarray analysis on the ischemic brain of MCAo rats treated with IV-hUMSCs (n = 6) or saline (n = 5) at 24 h post MCAo. Normal rat brain was used as a control (n = 5). A heat map of a total of 85 differentially expressed genes (fold difference ≥2 and p < 0.01 after Benjamini–Hochberg’s correction) is presented in the left panel. The transcripts listed in the right panel represent the most highly expressed transcripts between the IV-hUMSC group and saline group (fold difference ≥3 and p < 0.01 after Benjamini–Hochberg’s correction). FD represents the fold difference. p represents the p value. b Real-time PCR of IL1RN in brain tissue in the IV-hUMSC group and saline group. The fold difference was represented as a 2^−ddCT value. *p < 0.05. c Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of IL-1ra in the ischemic hemisphere of rats with no MCAo (control), rats with 24 h post MCAo (MCAo-24 h), rats with 72 h post MCAo treated with saline (saline group), and rats with 72 h post MCAo treated with 1 × 10⁶ IV-hUMSCs at 24 h post MCAo (IV-hUMSC group) (n = 5 in each group). d IL-1ra and ED-1 double immunostaining (arrows) in the ischemic brain in the IV-hUMSC group and saline group (n = 5 in each group). All data are presented as the mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05. Scale bar = 20 μm