Endothelial SOCS1 Knockout Mice in LPS-Induced Lung Injury

All animal care and treatment procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee of University of Chicago and University of Maryland. C57/BL6 mice were obtained from Jackson Laboratories (Bar Harbor, ME). EC-specific SOCS1 knockout mice were generated by cross-breeding of the endothelial VECad-Cre-ER^T2 line (42 (link)) and SOCS1^flox/flox mice (43 (link)) in the C57B6 background, as we previously described (44 (link)). Both sets of mice were anesthetized with an intraperitoneal injection of ketamine (75 mg/kg) and xylazine (7.5 mg/kg). Then, sterile saline solution or LPS (0.75 mg/kg body wt.) were given intratracheally. For the evaluation of lung injury parameters, BAL fluid was collected after intratracheal injection of 1 ml of sterile Hanks balanced salt buffer and total cells and protein content in BAL was measured as described previously (45 (link)). The vascular leak was analyzed by injecting Evans blue dye (30 mg/kg) into the external jugular vein 2 h before the end of the experiment as described earlier (45 (link)) and following perfusion excised lungs were imaged by a Kodak digital camera.