BACKGROUND

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition where early diagnosis and prognostic awareness provide guidance for selecting the appropriate treatment strategies. A wide variety of biomarker-based studies in clinical medicine provide new insights into personalized medicine for sepsis patients. MiRNAs are endogenous non-coding RNA molecules that have been acting as great potential diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers in various diseases.

METHODS AND RESULTS

In the present study, the expression levels of two selected miRNAs, including miR-135a and miR-193, were evaluated for their prognostic potential in patients with sepsis. The circulating levels of miRNAs were quantified by quantitative PCR (qPCR) in patients with sepsis (n = 100) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls (n = 100). Statistical findings confirmed the valuable prognostic potential of miR-135a in patients with sepsis, while no significant difference was found between the miR-193 expression level in the patients with sepsis and the controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Circulating levels of miRNA-135a can serve a the prognostic biomarker for patients with sepsis. These findings highlight the importance of miRNAs as signatures in the personalized managements of sepsis.