We realized that a transformed monocytic cell line, instead of primary cells, was used in the study, which may compromise the significance of our data. Basal level phosphorylation of both ERK1/ 2 and JNK1/2, which may affect certain cytokine production, would be minimal in primary monocytes. However, specific inhibitors used in the study completely wiped out phosphorylation of both ERK1/2 and JNK1/2 (Fig. 4) . The effect of MAP kinase phosphorylation and activation on the regulation of affected cytokines as observed in our study with the inhibitors is, therefore, valid, even though the cells were not primary cultures.