Abstract
BackgroundPrevalence of many eye and ocular surface diseases increases with age. While the clinical characteristics and pathophysiologic mechanisms of these conditions are often either known or extensively studied, the effects of normal aging on tear film and ocular surface have not been as widely researched.MethodsIn order to examine the effects of aging on tear fluid proteomics, tear fluid samples were collected preoperatively from 115 subjects undergoing strabismus or refractive surgery using glass microcapillary tubes. In addition to their refractive error or strabismus, the subjects did not have any other current, known eye diseases. The non-pooled samples were analysed using NanoLC-TripleTOF implementing a sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra mass spectrometry, resulting in quantified data of 849 proteins.ResultsAccording to correlation results, 17 tear proteins correlated significantly with increased age and many of these proteins were connected to inflammation, immune response and cell death. According to enrichment analysis, growth and survival of cells decreased while immune response and inflammation increased with aging. We also discovered several well-known, activated and inhibited upstream regulators, e.g. NF-κB, which has been previously connected to aging in numerous previous studies.ConclusionsOverall, the results show the common age-dependent alterations in tear fluid protein profile, which demonstrate similar age-associated alterations of biological functions previously shown in other tissue and sample types.
Highlights
Prevalence of many eye and ocular surface diseases increases with age
We focused on tear film proteomics in particular, which we hoped to provide further insight into the normal changes in ocular surface during aging and possibly provide further information on the differences between sexes
The identified protein changes may not directly point the specific underlying mechanism that is triggered during aging, these results provide a list of interesting proteins for future tear fluid proteomic studies associated with aging
Summary
Prevalence of many eye and ocular surface diseases increases with age. While the clinical characteristics and pathophysiologic mechanisms of these conditions are often either known or extensively studied, the effects of normal aging on tear film and ocular surface have not been as widely researched. The number of patients with these conditions is likely to increase due to population aging and, in the case of ocular surface diseases, due to increased use of digital displays and environmental factors such as poor air quality. There is a need for better understanding of normal molecular aging-effects in the eye in order to tackle the growing ocular surface issues. In ocular surface of the eye, the tear fluid, consisting of lipid, aqueous and mucin layers, which are produced respectively by meibomian glands, lacrimal glands and conjunctival goblet cells, is known to be altered during aging in many ways. Tear film composition is altered [10], similar to meibomian
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