Proteomic analysis of diabetic retinopathy identifies potential plasma-protein biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis.

Objectives: To identify molecular pathways and prognostic- and diagnostic plasma-protein biomarkers for diabetic retinopathy at various stages.

Methods: This exploratory, cross-sectional proteomics study involved plasma from 68 adults, including 15 healthy controls and 53 diabetes patients for various stages of diabetic retinopathy: non-diabetic retinopathy, non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy, proliferative diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. Plasma was incubated with peptide library beads and eluted proteins were tryptic digested, analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass-spectrometry followed by bioinformatics.