Fig. 5

Inhibition of p38 pathways reversed the enhancing effects of NBP on osteogenic differentiation of hBMSCs. A The relative mRNA expression of OCN, COL1A1, OSX, Runx-2, and ALP in hBMSCs, they were cultivated in culture media for 2 d with or without SB203580 (10 μm) or NBP (4 min) and quantified via qRT-PCR. GAPDH was used as the internal control. B Immunofluorescence staining of OCN and COL1A1 and, C its relative pixel intensities on day 2, scale bars: 100 μm. D Results of western blot analysis of phosphorylated p38, and BMP-2. E Represents the quantification of band intensity on day 2 were performed. GAPDH was used for the normalization. The mean and standard deviation values are used to represent the experimental results. The statistical significance of the data points was assessed using the student’s t-test, and significant differences were indicated by *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01 compared with NC, compared with NBP (4 min)