Abstract
Purpose:
To identify and determine differences in lipid profiles of aqueous humor (AH) in patients with Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (FED).
Methods:
<br /> 10 pseudophakic patients with FED and 10 phakic controls were enrolled in our study. Patients with previous history of anterior segment surgery, anterior segment pathology or intra-ocular injections were dismissed. Topical ocular medications within the last 6 months were reported. Aqueous humor was obtained during the first step of Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK) in FED patients and during refractive lensectomy in the control group. The AH was stored at -40C in the tissue bank for up to 9 months. Lipidomic ultra performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) was used to perform an optimal profiling of glycerolipids, sterol lipids, sphingolipids and glycerophospholipids. Metabolite extraction was accomplished by fractionating the samples into pools of species with similar physicochemical properties.
Results:
The levels of 32 out of 110 lipids change in Fuchs dystrophy humours when compared to healthy controls. The concentration of most diacylglycerophosphocholines and 1-ether, 2-acylglycerophosphocholines increase in Fuchs dystrophy humours when compared to healthy controls. In addition, 9 sphingomyelins increase significantly in Fuchs humours. Up to 2 long-chain highly unsaturated cholesteryl esters present higher levels in Fuchs humours when compared to controls.
Conclusions:
The lipid composition of aqueous humor in FED patients show differences when compared with healthy subjects. Those changes might be related to pathological changes in the lipid metabolism of the corneal endothelial cells in FED.