Fig. 5

Five potential biomarkers were further validated in pre- and post-treatment by Wulingsan. a Box plots of levels of five potential biomarkers including 5-MTP, CSA, acetylcarnitine, tiglylcarnitine and taurine in patients with CKD2 pre- and post-treatment by Wulingsan. Mean values are presented by horizontal bars. The whiskers indicate the maximum and minimum points. b Dots and lines showing changes of five potential biomarkers. c PCA of two components of proteinuria and five biomarkers. d OPLS-DA of two components of proteinuria and five biomarkers. e Heatmap of two components of proteinuria and five biomarkers. f Diagnostic performances of two components of proteinuria and five biomarkers based on the PLS-DA model. The black dots with red squares or black circles with blue squares are for the incorrectly predicted samples in pre- and post-treatment. 26 Out of the 30 patients with CKD2 of pre-treatment were located in pre-treatment area (86.6% specificity) and 28 out of the 30 patients with CKD2 of post-treatment were correctly grouped (93.3% sensitivity). g PCA of two components of five biomarkers. h OPLS-DA of five biomarkers. i Heatmap of five biomarkers. j Diagnostic performances of five biomarkers based on the PLS-DA model. The black dots with red squares and or black circles with blue squares are for the incorrectly predicted samples in pre- and post-treatment. 26 Out of the 30 patients with CKD2 of pre-treatment were located in pre-treatment area (86.6% specificity) and all the 30 patients with CKD2 of post-treatment were correctly grouped (100.0% sensitivity). These results demonstrated that the five biomarkers show high prediction class probabilities. k Analysis of PLS-DA based ROC curves of proteinuria and five potential biomarkers. The associated AUC, 95% confidence interval (CI), sensitivity and specificity values were indicated. Student’s t test was used for the significance of difference between two groups