Interestingly, in these animals desipramine pretreatment significantly increased baseline ceramide content similar to that in dSMPD1+/+ by unknown mechanisms and also abrogated the increase of ceramide, oxidative stress, LDH and troponin I. With respect to our findings in SMPD1−/− and dSMPD1−/− animals, we decreased acid sphingomyelinase as the only enzyme responsible for ceramide control in response to sepsis in cardiac tissue. The gene discussed is SMPD1; the disease is Sepsis.