Taken together, these results suggest that changes in repressive epigenetic modifications play an insignificant role in ALI-sepsis-induced downregulation of pulmonary and extra-pulmonary Angp1, Tie2, and Kdr. However, decreased repressive histone modifications may contribute to sepsis-induced Ngal expression in some organs (Fig. 7 and Additional file 1: Figures S4-S6). This evidence concerns the gene LCN2 and acute respiratory distress syndrome.