Recurrence of macular edema in patients with branch retinal vein occlusion: a proteomic study

• Published in: BMC ophthalmology Vol. 24; no. 1; p. 82
• Main Authors: Liu, Yin, Wang, Xiaohu, Sheng, Yonghong, Jin, Haili, Han, Linfeng, Xu, Jun, Fu, Qingqing, Liu, Jing, Ji, Feng, Ding, He, Xu, Xiaochen, Wu, KunChao, Zhang, Pengfei, Wang, Guoping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 22.02.2024; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Aqueous humor; Bioinformatics; Blindness; Blood circulation disorders; Branch retinal vein occlusion; Care and treatment; Cataract; Cataracts; Cell adhesion; Coagulation; Complement activation; Complement and coagulation cascades; Diseases; Dropsy; Edema; Eye surgery; Fibrin; Fibrinogen; Health aspects; Homeostasis; Hypertension; Macular edema; Mass spectrometry; Occlusion; Patients; Peptides; Platelet activation; Platelet aggregation; Protein-protein interactions; Proteins; Proteomics; Relapse; Retina; Retinal diseases; Scientific imaging; Signal transduction; Solvents; Therapeutic applications; Tomography; Vascular diseases; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Veins & arteries; Visual acuity; Visual perception; Macular edema; Platelet activation; Aqueous humor; Complement and coagulation cascades; Branch retinal vein occlusion; Proteomics
• ISSN: 1471-2415; 1471-2415
• DOI: 10.1186/s12886-024-03359-z

Branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO) is a common retinal vascular disease leading to severe vision loss and blindness. This study aimed to investigate and reveal the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying macular edema (ME) recurrence in patients with BRVO through a proteomic approach. We detected proteins in the aqueous humor of 14 untreated, four refractory, and four post-operative patients with BRVO-ME and 12 age-matched cataract controls using four-dimensional label-free proteomic and bioinformatics analyses. In total, 84 proteins exhibited significant differential expression between the BRVO and control samples (fold change [FC] ≥ 1.2 and adjusted p-value < 0.05). Compared to the control group, 43 and 41 proteins were upregulated and downregulated, respectively, in the BRVO group. These proteins were involved in cell adhesion, visual perception, retina homeostasis, and platelet activation. Several significantly enriched signaling pathways included complement and coagulation cascades and platelet activation. In the protein-protein interaction networks generated using the search tool for retrieval of interacting genes (STRING), the fibrinogen alpha chain and fibrinogen beta chain constituted a tightly connected cluster. Many common protein expression trends, such as the fibrinogen alpha chain and fibrinogen beta chain, were observed in both the recurrent and refractory groups. Differentially expressed proteins in the two groups were involved in complement activation, acute-phase response, platelet activation, and platelet aggregation. Important signaling pathways include the complement and coagulation cascades, and platelet activation. Protein-protein interaction analysis suggested that the fibrinogen alpha chain and fibrinogen beta chain constituted a tightly connected cluster. The expression of some differentially expressed proteins shared by the BRVO and the recurrent and refractory groups was reversed in the post-operative group. Our study is the first to analyze the proteomics of recurrent, refractory, and post-operative groups treated for BRVO-ME, and may potentially provide novel therapeutic interventions for the recurrence of ME.