Fig. 7.

Effects of the phosphorylation of p38 (a–c), JNK (d–f), and ERK1/2 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) (g–i) on GW9508-enhanced mRNA expression of IL-10 and β-endorphin in microglia. Cultured primary microglial cells were originated from the spinal cords of neonatal rats. For the phosphorylation immunoblotting study, microglia were collected 30 min after the GW9508 treatment, and their lysates were immunoblotted with the antibodies of anti-phospho-p38, anti-phospho-ERK1/2, and anti-phospho-JNK, respectively. Immunoblots of each experiment are placed on the upper panels, and densitometric analyses are shown in the lower panels. For the MAPK inhibitor study, microglia were collected 2 h after drug treatment, and the mRNA expression of IL-10 and the β-endorphin precursor proopiomelanocortin (POMC) was determined using quantitative real-time PCR. Data are presented as means ± SEM (N = 5~8 per group). Asterisk (*) and number sign (#) indicate P < 0.05 vs. the vehicle control group and GW9508 group, respectively; analyzed by unpaired and two-tailed Student’s t test and one-way ANOVA followed by the post hoc Student-Newman-Keuls test