Abstract Objectives Sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (SA-AKI) poses significant challenges in early diagnosis and prognosis evaluation due to the lack of reliable biomarkers. This study focused on miR-134-5p to explore its potential as a novel biomarker for SA-AKI. Methods Serum miR-134-5p levels of sepsis patients (64 simple sepsis and 65 SA-AKI) were detected via qRT-PCR. Diagnostic value was evaluated by the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Logistic regression analysis identified risk factors. Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression analysis evaluated the prognostic value of miR-134-5p in SA-AKI. Results miR-134-5p is upregulated in SA-AKI patients and exhibits diagnostic value (AUC=0.885). The miR-134-5p expression was positively correlated with the levels of serum creatinine (Scr, r=0.702), blood urea nitrogen (BUN, r=0.604), kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1, r=0.568), and negatively correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR, r=−0.315). miR-134-5p (OR=10.788) and eGFR (OR=0.368) were identified as risk factors for the development of AKI in sepsis patients. Compared with patients in the high-expression group, SA-AKI patients in the low miR-134-5p expression group exhibited better prognosis (log-rank test p=0.008). miR-134-5p could serve as an independent prognostic factor (HR=6.518) along with Scr (HR=4.491), BUN (HR=5.164), eGFR (HR=0.218), and KIM-1 (HR=5.662). Conclusions miR-134-5p was upregulated in SA-AKI and associated with the severity of SA-AKI. MiR-134-5p showed a diagnostic and prognostic value on SA-AKI.
Chen et al. (Sun,) studied this question.