Department of Medical Chemistry, Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical School, University of Szeged, Dóm tér 8, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary.
Department of Ophtalmology, Albert Szent-Györgyi Health Centre, University of Szeged, Korányi Fasor 10-11, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Jan 26;25(3):1559. doi: 10.3390/ijms25031559.
Human tear fluid contains numerous compounds, which are present in highly variable amounts owing to the dynamic and multipurpose functions of tears. A better understanding of the level and sources of variance is essential for determining the functions of the different tear components and the limitations of tear samples as a potential biomarker source. In this study, a quantitative proteomic method was used to analyze variations in the tear protein profiles of healthy volunteers. High day-to-day and inter-eye personal variances were observed in the tear volumes, protein content, and composition of the tear samples. Several normalization and outlier exclusion approaches were evaluated to decrease variances. Despite the intrapersonal variances, statistically significant differences and cluster analysis revealed that proteome profile and immunoglobulin composition of tear fluid present personal characteristics. Using correlation analysis, we could identify several correlating protein clusters, mainly related to the source of the proteins. Our study is the first attempt to achieve more insight into the biochemical background of human tears by statistical evaluation of the experimentally observed dynamic behavior of the tear proteome. As a pilot study for determination of personal protein profiles of the tear fluids of individual patients, it contributes to the application of this noninvasively collectible body fluid in personal medicine.
人泪液包含多种化合物,由于泪液的动态和多功能特性,这些化合物的含量差异很大。更好地了解不同泪液成分的水平和来源的差异对于确定不同泪液成分的功能以及泪液样本作为潜在生物标志物来源的局限性至关重要。在这项研究中,我们使用定量蛋白质组学方法分析了健康志愿者的泪液蛋白质谱的变化。我们观察到泪液量、蛋白质含量和组成在个体内和个体间均存在高度的日常和眼间差异。我们评估了几种归一化和离群值排除方法以降低差异。尽管存在个体内差异,但统计分析表明,泪液的蛋白质组谱和免疫球蛋白组成具有个体特征。通过相关性分析,我们可以识别出几个相关的蛋白质簇,主要与蛋白质的来源有关。我们的研究首次通过对实验观察到的泪液蛋白质组动态行为进行统计评估,深入了解人泪液的生化背景。作为确定个体患者泪液的个体蛋白质谱的初步研究,它有助于将这种非侵入性采集的体液应用于个体化医疗。