Our first analysis was to determine if Sirt3 correlated with organ dysfunction, and we found that Sirt3 had a negative correlation with SOFA scores both in sepsis and septic shock groups (Pearson: r2 = − 0.424, − 0.518; P = 0.011, 0.040), but no significant correlation with the ICU controls (Pearson: r2 = 0.112, P = 0.570) (Fig. 2a). Here, SIRT3 is linked to septic shock.