Abnormal Expression of SNHG7 Is a Biomarker for the Diagnosis and Prognosis of Neonatal Sepsis

Abstract

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is of great significance in diagnosing and prognosis of human diseases. This study aims to explore the expression of lncRNA SNHG7 in infants with neonatal sepsis and further evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic value of SNHG7 in neonatal sepsis. The expression levels of serum SNHG7 in 81 neonates were detected by quantitative real-time-PCR (qRT-PCR). The correlations between SNHG7 and clinicopathological indicators were estimated by the Pearson correlation coefficient. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated to assess the diagnostic value of SNHG7. Kaplan-Meier survival curve and multivariate Cox regression analysis were conducted to evaluate the prognostic value of SNHG7 in neonatal sepsis. The expression level of serum SNHG7 was significantly upregulated in the neonatal sepsis group compared to the controls, and overexpressed SNHG7 showed clinical diagnostic value for neonatal sepsis. It was observed that the SNHG7 levels were positively correlated with some indicators representing the degree of inflammation. Follow-up analysis and multivariate Cox regression revealed that the death probability of neonates with high SNHG7 level was higher than that with low SNHG7 levels, and SNHG7 was an independent factor of poor prognosis in neonates with neonatal sepsis. Together, our findings show that highly expressed SNHG7 has the potential to be a diagnostic biomarker for neonates with neonatal sepsis and was closely related to the poor prognosis of neonatal sepsis.