Title:Proteomics Screening of Differentially Expressed Cytokines in Tears of Patients with Graves’ Ophthalmopathy
Volume: 20
Issue: 1
Author(s): Rong-Hua Song, Bin Wang, Qiu-Ming Yao, Qian Li, Xi Jia and Jin-An Zhang*
Affiliation:
- Department of Endocrinology & Rheumatology, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences Affiliated Zhoupu Hospital, No. 1500 Zhouyuan Road, Pudong District, Shanghai,China
Keywords:
Graves’ ophthalmopathy, cytokine, protein microarray, CD40, CD40 ligand, tear.
Abstract: Background: The current study aimed at exploring the cytokine profile in the tears of patients
with Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO).
Methods: Tears were sampled from the eyes of 7 patients with active GO and 7 healthy volunteers
using filter paper. Then the levels of up to 34 cytokines in the tears of each subject were detected using
high-throughput protein microarray technology in line with the introduction.
Results: The results of cytokine protein microarray screening showed that 10 proteins, namely, CD40,
CD40 Ligand, GITR, IL-12p70, IL-1 beta, IL-2, IL-21, IL-6, MIP-3 alpha and TRANCE, were overexpressed
(with fold change >1.20) and 3 proteins, namely, GM-CSF, IL-1 sRI and IL-13 were downregulated
(with fold change < 0.83) in GO patients. In addition, the protein levels of CD40 and CD40
ligand (CD40L) were significantly different between GO patients and healthy controls (P=0.028 and
0.011, respectively). Further Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG)
analyses of differently expressed proteins showed that these proteins were involved in biological functions
including biological processes (positive regulation of cytokine production, JAK-STAT cascade
and leukocyte proliferation), molecular functions (cytokine and growth factor receptors binding and
cytokine activity), and other important pathways (cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, JAK-STAT
signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling pathway, NF-kappa B signaling pathway, Th17 cell differentiation,
and intestinal immune network for IgA production), all of which might be involved in the pathology of
GO.
Conclusion: Our cytokine protein microarray analysis indicated that several proteins were differentially
expressed in GO patients, which provides potential targets for GO prevention.
