TEK and acute respiratory distress syndrome: We hypothesized that experimental ALI-sepsis (employing a previously validated murine model of VAP that combines Staphylococcus aureus lung infection and mechanical ventilation, resulting in lung injury and extra-pulmonary organ dysfunction [24]) would be associated with both decreased permissive and increased repressive epigenetic modifications at downregulated genes in the Tie2/Ang and Vegfr/Vegf systems in the lung.