Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 22 pp 10252—10265

Metformin decreases LPS-induced inflammatory response in rabbit annulus fibrosus stem/progenitor cells by blocking HMGB1 release

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Figure 3. LPS effect on the proliferation and differentiation of rabbit AF cells cultured for 7 days. LPS not only decreased the proliferation of rabbit AF cells, but also induced significantly morphological change in rabbit AF cells during the culture (AH). The results showed that the cell number was decreased with increasing the concentration of LPS. Many cells have changed their shape from spindle shape to round shape (yellow arrows in BD, FH). Some adipocyte-like cells were also found in the LPS-treated groups (red arrows in C, D, G, H). Semi-quantification indicated that the round shape cells were increased at a LPS concentration dependent manner (I). The images of EH were the enlarged images of the box areas in the images of AD. *p<0.05 compared to the control group. White bars = 200 μm, red bars = 50 μm.