Fig. 5: Cannabinoids protect against LPS-induced sepsis in BALB/c mice.

a Survival rate of mice treated with WIN55212-2 (WIN, 5 mg/kg), LPS (20 mg/kg), LPS/WIN55212-2 and LPS/WIN55212-2 in the presence of the autophagy inhibitor 3-MA (15 mg/kg) or CB1 (Rimonabant (RIM), 5 mg/kg) and PPARα (GW6471 (GW6), 5 mg/kg) antagonists monitored for 78 h (n = 10 of two independent experiments). b Body weight after 24 h of the indicated treatment (n = 4–9 of two independent experiments). c Serum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) IL-6 levels after 16 h of the indicated treatment (n = 6–11 of two independent experiments). d Left, flow cytometry representative dot plots of spleen DCs. Right, percentage of spleen CD11c⁺ MHCII⁺ DCs from mice treated with the indicated conditions for 16 h (n = 7–8 of two independent experiments). e Geometric mean fluorescence intensity (gMFI) of CD86 expression in spleen CD11c⁺ MHCII ⁺ DCs from mice treated with the indicated conditions for 16 h. f mRNA expression levels of the cytokines IL-6 and IL-10 and autophagy-related genes ATG5, ATG12, AG14 and LC3A in isolated spleen DCs from mice treated with the indicated conditions. Data were obtained from a pull of spleen DCs from four mice treated with the same stimuli. One representative example of two independent experiments is shown. g gMFI of CYTO-ID green dye in spleen DCs from mice treated with the indicated conditions (n = 4 of two independent experiments). h Assessment score of physical appearance 3 days after the treatment with WIN55212-2 (5 mg/kg), LPS (10 mg/kg), LPS/WIN55212-2 and LPS/WIN55212-2 in the presence of the autophagy inhibitor 3-MA (15 mg/kg) or CB1 (Rimonabant (RIM), 5 mg/kg) and PPARα (GW6471 (GW6) 5 mg/kg) antagonists (n = 7 of two independent experiments). i Left, spleen weight from mice treated with the indicated conditions after 3 days (n = 5–7 of two independent experiments). Right, representative examples of spleen sizes. j Percentage of FOXP3⁺ Tregs in spleen from mice treated with the indicated stimuli (n = 6–8 of two independent experiments). k Assessment score of physical appearance 3 days after the treatment with LPS (10 mg/kg) and LPS/WIN55212-2 (WIN, 5 mg/kg) in Treg depleted mice with anti-CD25 antibody (n = 4 of one independent experiment). l Spleen weight from Treg depleted mice treated with the indicated conditions after 3 days (n = 4 of one independent experiment). m Percentage of FOXP3⁺ Tregs in spleen from Treg depleted mice treated with the indicated stimuli (n = 4 of one independent experiment). Values are mean ± SEM. Statistical significance was determined using One-way Anova. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.