Molecular Age of Eye for 1st Time Determined

Led by an Indian-American surgeon, a group of researchers has meticulously cataloged nearly 6,000 proteins from various cell types in the eye. They achieved this by examining minute drops of eye fluid typically extracted during surgical procedures.

Surprisingly, the team also detected proteins associated with Parkinson’s disease within eye fluid, which they say could offer a pathway to earlier Parkinson’s diagnosis, according to the study published in the journal Cell.

Real-Time Disease Insight Through Eye Anatomy and Proteomics

“What’s amazing about the eye is we can look inside and see diseases happening in real time,” said Vinit Mahajan, a surgeon and professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University.”Our primary focus was to connect those anatomical changes to what’s happening at the molecular level inside the eyes of our patients,” he added.To map protein production by different types of cells within the eye, Mahajan’s team used a high-resolution method to characterise proteins in 120 liquid biopsies taken from the aqueous or vitreous humour of patients undergoing eye surgery.

Altogether, they identified 5,953 proteins — ten times the number of proteins previously characterised in similar studies.Using a software tool they created called TEMPO, the researchers were able to trace each protein back to specific cell types.The model was able to accurately predict the age of healthy eyes but showed that diseases were associated with significant molecular aging.For diabetic retinopathy, the degree of aging increased with disease progression and this aging was accelerated by as much as 30 years for individuals with severe (proliferative) diabetic retinopathy.