Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine the concentration of cytokines, chemokines and soluble receptor in tears of dry eye patients (DED) and to analysis the possible relationship between the clinical severity of DED and expression levels of tear cytokines, chemokines and soluble receptor
Methods: :
DED patients were examined the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaires, corneal staining, conjunctival staining, tear breakup time (tBUT), and impression cytology, and divided into 4 groups according to the Dry Eye Workshop (DEWS) severity classification. Tears were collected from 324 DED patients and 70 healthy subjects by a polyurethane minisponges. The concentrations of cytokines/chemokines were analyzed by Luminex 200 using Human cytokine/chemokine (42 molecules), Human cytokine/chemokine Panel II (23 molecules) and Human soluble cytokine receptor (14 molecules). The Median Fluorescent Intensity (MFI) was used to obtain the calculating cytokines, chemokines and soluble receptor concentrations in tears
Results: :
Of the 79 cytokines, chemokines and soluble receptors, we detected 19 molecules that demonstrated a significant differences in tears from DED patients. In cytokines, IL 1 beta (p<0.05), IL-6 (p<0.001), IL-16 (p<0.001), IL-33 (p<0.05), G-CSF (p<0.001) and TGF alpha (p<0.05) were significantly increased in DED patients compared to control subjects. Whereas the 4 cytokines, IL4, IL12, IL17 and IFN gamma (all p<0.001) were significantly decreased in DED patients. CXCR1, CCL2, CCL15, CXCL5 (all p<0.001), of chemokines and sIL-1RI (p<0.05), sgp130 (p<0.05), sIL-6R (p<0.001), sEGFR (p<0.05), sTNF RII (p<0.001) of soluble receptors were increased in DED patients. Additionally, there were significant correlations between these molecules and the clinical severity of DED patients
Conclusions: :
In tears of DED patients, fifteen molecules were elevated DED patients, whereas 4 molecules were decreased. And also it was shown that levels of these molecules in tears have been correlated with clinical severity in dry eye. These results suggest that levels of cytokine, chemokine and soluble receptor in tear would offer utility as a biomarker of DED severity, and the pathogenesis of DED may involve inflammatory event
Keywords: cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye • cytokines/chemokines • inflammation