Potential biomarker for diagnosis and therapy of sepsis: Lactylation

INTRODUCTION: As a disease that has plagued human health for decades, sepsis has so far had no specific diagnostic or therapeutic indicators. The discovery of lactylation modifications not only uncovered the deep‐rooted causes of changing between lactate level and pathophysiology and immunology of sepsis, but also reaffirmed the inevitable link between metabolic reprogramming and epigenetic reprogramming in sepsis. Lactylation modification became a potential marker for diagnosis and guiding the treatment of sepsis. AIM: In this paper, we will summarize the discovery and regulation of lactylation modifications, discuss the study of lactylation modifications in sepsis, and evaluate their possibility and potential as diagnostic and therapeutic indicators of sepsis. CONCLUSION: Lactylation modification is directly regulated by glycolysis and lactate, and inhibition of glycolytic pathway‐related enzymes can regulate the level of lactylation modification, and more importantly, lactylation modification can act on these enzymes to regulate their functions and feedback regulate the level of glycolysis, this finding provides more ideas for clinical treatment of sepsis. We use “epigenetic modification”, “glycolysis”, “lactate”, “lactylaiton” and “sepsis” as keywords and search the relevant literature through Pubmed and Web of science up to 2023.