Do different lipid components accelerate the pathogenesis and severity of Diabetic Retinopathy?

Background: To assess the association of lipid and lipid-derived toxic molecules in pathogenesis and severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: The present cross-sectional study included 14 healthy individuals (HC) without T2DM, 22 T2DM subjects without DR (DNR), 24 T2DM subjects with mild non-proliferative DR (MNPDR), and 24 T2DM subjects with high-risk proliferative DR (HRPDR). All subjects underwent plasma and vitreous analysis for estimation of total lipid (TL), free fatty acid (FFA), lipid peroxides (LPOs) like malondialdehyde (MDA), 4-Hydroxy-noneal (HNE), the advanced lipoxidation end product (ALE) like Hexanoyl-lysine (HLY) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) following standard spectrophotometric and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods respectively.