Fig. 6.

The phosphorylation of ERK was involved in the effects of propofol and TNF-α on NF-κB phosphorylation and MMP-9 expression in hCMEC/D3 cells. a Left panel is the protein expression of p-ERK, ERK and MMP-9 in hCMEC/D3 cells treated with TNF-α and propofol; right panel is the plot of normalized ratios of optical densities. b The hCMEC/D3 cells were treated with TNF-α, propofol and an ERK inhibitor (LY3214996, 5 μM). Left panel is the protein expression of p-ERK, p-NF-κB, ERK, NF-κB and MMP-9; right panel is the plot of normalized ratios of optical densities. Data were repressed as the mean ± SD. *P < 0.05, compared with the control group. ^#P < 0.05, compared with TNF-α treatment group. β-Actin served as an internal loading control. Each assay was performed in five replicates