Consistent with these observations, Qi et al. further showed that bone marrow MSCex could inhibit chondrocyte apoptosis by regulating the P38 mitogen-activated protein kinases, protein kinase B or Akt and MAPK/ERK pathways in response to IL-1, which is a key mediator of articular cartilage degeneration in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis (Qi et al., 2019). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is osteoarthritis.