Identification of TRIM52 as a potential biomarker in mortality risk assessment in patients with sepsis

Introduction: Sepsis is one of the most common causes of death among hospitalized patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). It is particularly difficult to diagnose in this setting because of the multiple comorbidities and underlying diseases that these patients present. In the clinical diagnosis, the current recommendation for identifying both sepsis and septic shock is the use of the SOFA score (sequential organ failure assessment score). SOFA is a system, which uses accessible parameters in daily clinical practice to identify dysfunction or failure of the key organs as a result of sepsis. This tools cannot be used alone, more abundant clinical assessment data should be complemented. The aim of this study was to analyze the clinical value of tripartite motif protein 52 (TRIM52) as a potential biomarker for predicting the risk of death in septic patients.

Materials and methods: A case-control study was conducted on sepsis patients and healthy volunteers admitted to the First affiliated hospital of Chongqing Medical University. Sepsis patients that met the Sepsis-3 diagnostic criteria were included in the septic patient group. The levels of TRIM52 in the samples were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of TRIM52, SOFA score, APACHEII score, PCT, CRP, WBC and Creatinine for 28-day survival was used to evaluate the ability of TRIM52 in predicting the mortality of sepsis.

Results: The level of TRIM52 in patients with sepsis was significantly higher than that in healthy group (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, TRIM52 levels in non-surviving septic patients was higher than that in survivors (p < 0.05). The ROC curve analysis indicated that TRIM52 showed a better prediction of 28-day mortality risk in ICU sepsis patients compared to other indicators such as SOFA score, APACHEII score, PCT, CRP, and WBC, with AUC values, respectively (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: TRIM52 level in septic patients has an important value in predicting the 28-day mortality risk of septic patients, and may be a novel potential early clinical detecting indicator.