When patients were grouped according to the presumed origin of sepsis (pulmonary, abdominal or other locations), those with a pulmonary origin of infection had significantly higher progranulin concentrations than patients with abdominal infection (only in the confirmatory study, p = 0.013) or other causes of sepsis (p = 0.037 exploratory and p = 0.022 in the confirmatory group) (Fig. 3A). Here, GRN is linked to infection.