Fig. 1: Esketamine exerts protective effects on septic ALI.

a Kaplan–Meier analysis of survival in septic mice after prophylactic and/or therapeutic administration of esketamine (S-KT; 15 mg/kg) or 0.9% saline (n = 27 for saline, 25 for S-KT-Combined administration, 23 for S-KT-Pre-administration, 24 for S-KT-Post-administration). b Body weight changes (n = 26), c murine sepsis score (n = 10), and d core body temperature changes (n = 10) in septic mice after prophylactic and therapeutic administration of S-KT or 0.9% saline. e, f Representative H&E sections of lung and histological injury scores (n = 7), g lung W/D weight ratio (n = 19 for sham + saline at 12 h, 10 for sham + saline at 24 h, 18 for CLP + saline at 12 h, 13 for CLP + saline at 24 h, 27 for CLP + S-KT at 12 h, 16 for CLP + S-KT at 24 h), and h pulmonary capillary leakage determined with Evans blue dye (n = 7 for CLP + saline, 8 for sham + saline and CLP + S-KT) in mice after combined prophylactic and therapeutic administration of S-KT or 0.9% saline. 20×, scale bar = 100 μm. 40×, scale bar = 50 μm. i Bacterial loads in the murine lung after combined prophylactic and therapeutic administration of S-KT or 0.9% saline (n = 6 for sham + saline, 7 for CLP + saline, 5 for CLP + S-KT). Data are shown as mean ± SD. ^*P < 0.05, ^**P < 0.01, ^***P < 0.001, ^****P < 0.0001. ns not significant. P values were calculated using the Log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test (a), two-way ANOVA (b), two-sided Student’s unpaired t-test (c), two-tailed Mann–Whitney test (d), and one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple-comparison test (f–i). Source data and exact P values are provided as a Source Data file.