Background: Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) keratitis is a major cause of corneal blindness in the world, and\nan in-depth understanding of its pathogenesis may help improve existing diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of\nthis study is to compare and analysis the total tear protein profile of HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients, and to\nquantify the potential candidate biomarkers of HSV-1 epithelial keratitis.\nMethods: We investigated the proteome in tear fluid from three HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients and three\nhealthy control subjects using nano-scale liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nLC-MS/MS) analysis.\nFunctional annotation of differentially expressed proteins was done with the Gene Ontology (GO) analysis. ELISA\nwas done to quantify the potential candidate biomarkers in 26 clinical cases.\nResults: Tear fluid from three HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients and three healthy control subjects contained a total\nof 1275 proteins and 326 proteins were unique to tear fluid of HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients. Bioinformatics\nanalysis revealed that tear proteins from HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients may be involved in metabolic processes,\nantigen presentation, inflammatory response, and in the TNF-mediated and T cell receptor pathways. Furthermore,\nIL1A, IL12B, DEFB4A, and CAMP, which are associated with the inflammatory response and inhibition of viral\ninfection, were significantly more abundant in the HSV-1 epithelial keratitis patients than in the healthy control\nsubjects.\nConclusions: This study reports the proteomic profile of tears in HSV-1 epithelial keratitis for the first time and\nidentifies a number of unique differentially expressed proteins.
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