C57 black 6 c57bl 6 mice

C57 black 6 (C57BL/6) mice were obtained from Charles River Laboratory. Kcnk6^−/− mice was a generous gift from Dr. Lavannya M. Pandit (Baylor College of Medicine) (Lloyd et al., 2011 (link); Pandit et al., 2014 (link)). P2rx7^−/−, Nlrp3^−/− and Caspase 1^−/− mice were purchased from Jackson Laboratory. All mice were housed in the University of Illinois Animal Care Facility in accordance with institutional and NIH guidelines. Veterinary care and animal experiments were approved by the University of Illinois Animal Care & Use Committee.

Six-week-old male C57 black 6 mice (C57BL/6) were purchased from Charles River Laboratories, Inc., Wilmington, MA. The animals were provided with an ovalbumin-free diet and water ad libitum and were housed in an environment-controlled, pathogen-free animal facility. All animal protocols were approved by the Animal Care Committee of the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Zablocki Veterans Administration Medical Center, in agreement with the National Institute of Health’s guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. We were unable to conduct our studies in animal models with COVID-19 as current animal models generally had only mild forms of the disease and were not seen as adequate models for assessment of anti-inflammatory properties of inhalation drugs at the time our studies were conducted.