Objective To identify the circulating miRNAs which can be used to evaluate the diagnosis and prognosis of sepsis by microarray and quantitative real-time PCR,and to predict target genes of miR-519c-5p by bioinformatics analysis. Methods Three sepsis patients,3 septic shock patients and 3 normal controls were enrolled in this study. Plasma RNA was extracted,and was used for hybridized by miRCURY LNATMmicroRNA Array.The signals were scanned and used to conduct differential expression profilings and cluster analysis.Further-more,we performed qRT-PCR to confirm the expression of miRNAs chosen from microarray screening. We used the miRanda and Targetscan databases to predict target genes of the concerned miRNAs and used KEGG database to analyze the related pathways. Results Fifty-seven and 11 miRNAs were observed significantly upregulated in sepsis and septic shock patients,respectively(fold change≥2.0;P<0.05).qRT-PCR results showed that miR-519c-5p was significantly upregulated in patients with sepsis or patients with septic shock compared with the healthy normal controls(P<0.05).Twenty-nine target genes of miR-519c-5p were predicted by the bioinformatics analysis,and 7 potential target genes participate in the sepsis-related pathways.MiR-519c-5p might be a potential positive regulator for the critical cell cycle control gene of MAP2K4,contributing to the vascular endothelial cells apoptosis via MAPK signaling pathway. Conclusions We demonstrated that the plasma level of miR-519c-5p can be used for the diagnosis of sepsis and miR-519c-5p may be a potential therapeutic target for sepsis.