Abstract
Purpose :
Compared to cat, monkey, and human corneal endothelial cells (CEC), rabbit corneal endothelial cells exhibit significantly greater proliferative capacity. When rabbit CECs are damaged, they can recover and re-enter the mitotic phase. However, the reasons for the observed differences in proliferative capacity between human corneal endothelial cells (HCEC) and rabbit CECs remain unclear. The purpose of our study is to identify key proteins that may contribute to the regulatory differences in CEC proliferation.
Methods :
We analysed the proteomes of four human corneal endothelium samples and four rabbit corneal endothelium samples with quantitative label-free proteomics and downstream analysis.
Results :
In this study, significant differences in protein expression between human and rabbit CECs and large numbers of human-specific or rabbit-specific proteins were revealed. Among rabbit-specific proteins, TGFβ, PITX2 and keratocan might be the hub proteins that contribute to the superiority of proliferative capacity since they have been indicated to regulate the proliferative capacity of CECs. Moreover, we summarized the characteristics of overlapping proteins to identify DEPs and emphasized the importance of metabolic processes and NF-kappa B signaling pathway.
Conclusions :
This study revealed the characteristic signatures of rabbit and human corneal endothelial proteomes, and explored the cellular functions and proteins that might contribute to the difference in proliferative capacity between human and rabbit CECs.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.