Fig. 4.

Repetitive contraction trial of diaphragm muscle strips in response to direct muscle field stimulation was also performed for all diaphragm samples. A shows force-time curves from representative experiments for an animal from each experimental group. B displays group mean data ±1 SE for the force-time curves for sham controls (black) and cecal ligation puncture (CLP) sepsis (red), sham+SS31 (green), and CLP+SS31 (blue) groups (n = 5–6 mice per group). At all time points, the diaphragm-specific force generated by diaphragms taken from the CLP group was markedly lower than the force generated by muscles from the other 3 experimental groups (P < 0.001 for comparison). *Statistical significance.