Evidence for serum miR-15a and miR-16 levels as biomarkers that distinguish sepsis from systemic inflammatory response syndrome in human subjects.

摘要

Serum microRNAs may be useful biomarkers for diagnosing human diseases. We investigated serum levels of miR-15a and miR-16 in patients with sepsis and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) without infection.We enrolled 166 sepsis patients, 32 SIRS patients, and 24 normal controls. Serum miR-15a and miR-16 expression levels were determined by quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assays (qRT-PCR).Serum miR-15a (p<0.001) and miR-16 (p<0.05) were both significantly higher in sepsis patients compared with normal controls, and miR-15a (p<0.001) and miR-16 (p<0.01) levels in SIRS patients were also significantly higher than those in normal controls. Serum miR-15a and miR-16 levels were not correlated with white blood cell counts. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that miR-15a had the highest area under the curve of 0.858 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.800-0.916] for the diagnosis of sepsis compared with C reactive protein and procalcitonin with areas under the curve of 0.572 (95% CI 0.479-0.665; p=0.198) and 0.605 (95% CI 0.443-0.767; p=0.168), respectively. When its cut-off point was set at 0.21, serum miR-15a had a sensitivity of 68.3% and a specificity of 94.4%.Serum miR-15a and miR-16 can both distinguish sepsis/SIRS from normal controls. miR-15a may be a biomarker that distinguishes between sepsis and SIRS.