Effect of intratracheal instillation of HCl and LPS at 10, 20, 30, or 40 μg/g body wt on rat mortality and body weight. A: Kaplan-Meier survival curve of rats treated with saline/saline, HCl/saline, or HCl with LPS at 10, 20, 30, or 40 μg/g body wt over 72 h. B: change in rat body weight over time. The rat body weight after euthanasia at 24, 48, or 72 h was normalized by the respective baseline weight. Data from 8 independent experiments are reported as mean values ± SE. ***P < 0.001, significant differences between rats treated with saline/saline and rats treated with HCl and LPS per each time point. No significant differences were found between control rats treated with saline/saline and rats treated with HCl/saline.