Effects of NMDA-CM on BLM-treated MLE-12 cells. Normal or 3 mM NMDA-CM was used to co-culture 1 μg/ml BLM-treated MLE-12 cells for 24 h. Furthermore, 10 ng/ml HGF was simultaneously used to treat MLE-12 cells. (A) Protein expression levels of XBP1 and Bip in MLE-12 cells were measured by western blotting. (B and C) Semi-quantitative analysis of XBP1 and Bip protein expression levels. (D) Immunofluorescence staining of Ki67 (red) in MLE-12 cells. DAPI (blue) staining was used to detect the nuclei (magnification, ×400). (E) Semi-quantitative analysis of Ki67-positive MLE-12 cells. (F) Apoptotic cells were identified by Annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/PI staining by flow cytometry. (G) Quantitative analysis of total apoptotic Annexin V+/PI− and Annexin V+/PI+ cells is shown. Data are presented as the means ± standard error of the mean, n=3. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001 vs. control; #P<0.05, ##P<0.01, ###P<0.001 vs. BLM, &P<0.05, &&P<0.01 vs. BLM + CM, $P<0.05, $$P<0.01, $$$P<0.001 vs. BLM + NMDA-CM. Bip, immunoglobulin heavy chain-binding protein; BLM, bleomycin; CM, conditioned medium; HGF, hepatocyte growth factor; MSC-CM; mesenchymal stromal cell-derived CM; NMDA-CM, NMDA-preconditioned MSC-CM; NMDA, N-methyl-D-aspartate; PI, propidium iodide; XBP1, X-box binding protein 1.