When infants with culture proven meningitis were compared to negative controls, IL-23 possessed the greatest accuracy for the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis (AUC 0.9698) (Fig 2A, 2B and 2C); the AUC for IL-23 was better than the results of ROC testing of CSF WBC, protein and glucose (S3 Table), and also better than values obtained for a panel of cytokines in a prior study (S4 Table) [6]. This evidence concerns the gene IL37 and bacterial meningitis.