The Use of Conjunctival Swab for the Proteomic Characterisation of Dry Eye Syndrome |
Joanna Graham1†, Robert L.J. Graham1†, Raymond Beirne1, Victoria E. McGilligan1, Stephen C. Downes1, Jonathan E. Moore1,2, Tara C. B.
Moore1, Geoff McMullan1* |
| 1School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland |
| 2Department of Ophthalmology, Royal Group Hospitals, Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| *Corresponding author: |
Professor Geoff McMullan, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Cromore Road,
Coleraine, BT52 1SA, UK,
E-mail: g.mcmullan@ulster.ac.uk,
Fax: +44-2870-324375 |
|
| †Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript. |
| Received April 04, 2008; Accepted April 15, 2008; Published April 22, 2008 |
| Citation: Joanna G, Robert LJG, Raymond B, Victoria EMG, Stephen CD, etal. (2008) The Use of Conjunctival Swab for the Proteomic Characterisation of Dry Eye Syndrome. J Proteomics Bioinform 1: 017-027. doi:10.4172/jpb.1000005 |
| Copyright: © 2008 Joanna G, etal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author
and source are credited. |
| Abstract |
In this study we report the first gel based proteomic analysis of an inflammed dry eye utilising a clinically-based non-invasive methodology
for collection of a specimen from the posterior lid and inferior conjunctival mucosa of the subject. This multidimensional
technique allowed the identification of 592 proteins, having a MOWSE score of greater than 40, using the heuristic tool PROVALT.
Automated curation of this list using an inbuilt randomised database searching tool with false discovery rate set at 1% significantly
reduced this list to 86 proteins. Additional manual curation resulted in the final positive identification of 75 proteins. These identified
proteins were functionally classified and physiochemically characterised. This led to the identification of a number of proteins involved
in cell structure, inflammation, and the innate immune response. Contained within these proteins were a number of potential biomarkers
of not only dry eye syndrome but also lacrimal gland acinar cell function such as lacritin, calgranulin A and lacrimal proline-rich
protein 4. |
|
|
|