LPS-Induced Lung Injury in Xb130 KO Mice

Four groups of animals were used with 5 mice per group: 1) WT-PBS, 2) WT-LPS, 3) Xb130 KO-PBS, 4) Xb130 KO-LPS. At Day 2 after administration, mice were sacrificed, and the lung, spleen, kidney and liver were harvested. The left lung and other tissues was fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde, and the upper lobe of the right lung was used for lung wet/dry (W/D) weight study, whereas the remaining lung tissue was snap-frozen and stored at −80°C. The lung wet/dry (W/D) weight ratio was calculated by dividing the lung tissue weight before and after drying it at 80°C for 48 hours. The lung and other tissues were embedded in paraffin and cut at 5 μm thickness, and the sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H & E). Images were captured using Olympus BX51-FL (Olympus Co, Ltd). We randomly chose 5 fields (×200) and assessed the lung injury with a modified score system [37 (link)]. Briefly, the alveolar edema/exudates, hemorrhage, and interstitial/alveolar cellular infiltration were scored on a scale of 1–3 (0: absent, 1: mild, 2: moderate, 3: severe) with a maximum score of 9 [38 (link)–40 (link)].