Plasma pancreatic stone protein is a promising biomarker for prognosis and severity outcome in sepsis patients with COVID-19

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Hozeifa Mohamed Hassan, Rongzhi Liu, Yuhang Lv, Yanyun Ruan, Shaoyin Bao, Yulin Fu, Shuanshuan Liu, Lin Wang, Tianjun Pan, Qi Chen, Xueping Lou, Biao Huang, Zhencang Zheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-10-01
• Subjects: Hyper-inflammation; Sepsis; COVID-19; PSP; Disease prognosis; Severity outcome
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-09750-0

Abstract Sepsis and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are life-threatening clinical syndromes with high mortality rate. This study aimed to investigate pancreatic stone protein (PSP) role as potential biomarker for sepsis/COVID-19 prognostication. Herein, based on the novel amplified luminescent proximity homogeneous assay (AlphaLISA), the PSP plasma concentrations were determined, and the PSP diagnostic and prognostic values were characterized in a total of 285 patients with inflammatory disorders and 15 healthy volunteers. We found that plasma PSP protein was significantly overexpressed in patients with sepsis covid-positive (Sepsis+ve, n = 105) compared to non-sepsis covid-negative (Non-Sepsis-ve, n = 60), non-sepsis covid-positive (Non-Sepsis+ve, n = 75), sepsis covid-negative (Sepsis-ve, n = 45), and normal controls (NC, n = 15). PSP showed good prediction ability of Sepsis+ve short-term mortality, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.8368 and 0.8070 at 28 and 90 days, respectively. Significant correlations were seen between plasma PSP and SOFA score, urea, immune mediators and inflammatory cytokines. Risk stratification analysis indicated higher mortality risk for Sepsis+ve with plasma PSP level exceeding the optimal cut-off value (≥ 119 ng/mL). PSP might be sepsis/COVID-19 disease biomarker, and could provide clinicians with a potential target for improving diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.