Table 1.

Data collection elements

Category of interest	Example items
Study characteristics	Methods, setting, sample size, number of experimental groups, number of animals per group
Publication characteristics	Study title, first author, date of publication, journal, funding support, country, number of total authors
Study population (animal model)	Age, weight, species (e.g., mouse, rat, pig, dog), strain, number of animals
Type of sepsis model	Cecal ligation and puncture, fecal slurry injection, live bacterial injection, colon ascendens stent peritonitis
Intervention and comparison characteristics	Type of intervention, dose, timing, route of administration
Co-interventions	Antibiotics, fluid resuscitation, vasopressors
Outcomes	Death (or humane surrogate endpoints, measured in number of deaths (dichotomous)). Death will also be described at less than 2 days, between 2 and 4 days, and greater than 4 days to better understand the natural course of disease between male and female animal models Organ dysfunction: pulmonary (histological evidence of tissue injury, measured using histological scores), alteration of the alveolar capillary barrier, measured via total protein, albumin, and IgM, renal (creatinine or urea), hepatic (AST, ALT), cardiac (echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular ejection fraction, fractional shortening, troponin I or T) Bacterial load — colony-forming units per milliliter in sample organs/sites (e.g., peritoneal fluid, spleen) IL-6 levels
Risk-of-bias items	In accordance with a modified version of SYRCLE’s risk-of-bias tool: selection bias, performance bias, detection bias, attrition bias, reporting bias
Other	Type of comparator