Figure 1.

Effects of hoveniae semen seu fructus ethanol (HSFE) extract on (a) cell viability and (b) secretion of NO in macrophages. Cells were seeded with 5.0 × 10⁴ cells/well on a 96-well culture plate and preincubated for 18 h. Then, cells were pretreated with HSFE for 1 h prior to 24 h incubation with LPS. At least three independent tests were repeated to ensure reproducibility of the experimental results. (a) Cell viability was examined using a cell-counting kit. (b) NO secretion into the culture media was determined using the Griess assay. As a control, cells were incubated with the vehicle alone. Data represent the mean ± SEM of duplicate determinations from three independent experiments. ^#P < 0.001 (vs. control) and ^∗∗P < 0.001 (vs. LPS) values were considered statistically significant.