<p>Urinary biomarkers are superior to serum creatinine for defining onset and extent of kidney injury. This study classifies the temporal predictive ability of biomarkers for vancomycin-induced kidney injury (VIKI) as defined by histopathologic damage.: Male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=125) were randomized to receive 150 to 400 mg/kg/day vancomycin via once or twice daily intraperitoneal injection over 1, 3, or 6 days. Urine was collected once during the 24 hours prior to euthanasia or twice for rats treated for 6 days. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) were employed to assess urinary biomarker performance of kidney injury molecule 1 (KIM-1), clusterin, osteopontin (OPN), cystatin C, and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) to predict histopathologic defined VIKI (using a national standard pathologic assessment scheme from hematoxylin and eosin stained kidneys). Urinary KIM-1, clusterin, and OPN outperformed cystatin C and NGAL according to sensitivity and specificity. For the earliest injury, urinary KIM-1 (AUC 0.662, p&lt;0.001) and clusterin (AUC 0.706, p&lt;0.001) were most sensitive to predicting even low-level histopathologic damage at 24 h when compared to NGAL. KIM-1 and clusterin are earliest and most sensitive predictors of VIKI. As injury progresses, KIM-1, clusterin and OPN define the extent of damage best.</p>