C1QA and Sepsis: To circumvent this problem and further assess the function of neutrophil-derived C1q in sepsis, we generated a conditional knockout C1qflox/flox; Ly6GCre/+ (C1q cKO) mouse strain by crossing C1qa-floxed mice with a mouse line in which the first exon of the Ly6g gene is replaced by a knock-in allele encoding Cre recombinase (24).