The clinical significance of the SIRT2 expression level in the early stage of sepsis patients.

Abstract

Sirtuin2 (SIRT2), one of the members of the sirtuins family, has been proven to be a conserved protein. SIRT2 is reported to be associated with infection and inflammation, and its expression level in some cells such as mice brain can be reduced by the stimulation of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We surmise that the expression levels of SIRT2 may be a warning signal of sepsis in the human body. A total of 38 intensive care units (ICU) patients with a diagnosis of sepsis/septic shock were recruited within 24 h of entry into the ICU. Serum procalcitonin (PCT), hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and SIRT2 measurements were performed on admission, and on the second and fourth therapy days. The mRNA expression of SIRT2 was detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We ascertained that the expression levels of SIRT2 mRNA in sepsis patients and septic shock patients were lower than those in the healthy volunteer control group (P<0.001); On the first day, the septic shock patients showed a lowered expression of SIRT2 mRNA than the sepsis patients did (P<0.001), but there were no significantly differences on the following days. In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for sepsis, the area under the curve (AUC) of SIRT2 mRNA expression was larger than the AUC of PCT and hs-CRP. Furthermore, the sensitivity of SIRT2 was higher than that of PCT and hs-CRP, but the specificity of SIRT2 was higher than that of hs-CRP and lower than that of PCT. The data demonstrate that sepsis and septic shock patients have a decreased expression level of SIRT2 mRNA, and thus SIRT2 may be a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of sepsis, akin to PCT and hs-CRP.