Endocrine Abstracts

Retinopathy has been observed in around 25% of patients with type one and type two diabetes for 3–5 years. Diabetic retinopathy can cause poor vision and even blindness since high glucose has been evidenced to weaken retinal capillary leading to leakage of blood into the surrounding space. Therefore, the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of diabetes retinopathy are very important in diabetes patients. Here, we adopted a proteomics-based approach using 2D-DIGE and MALDI-TOF/TOF MS to compare the differential plasma proteome between diabetic retinopathy with significant retinopathy occurrence within 5 years after diagnosis of diabetes, and diabetic non-retinopathy without diagnosed retinopathy for more than 10 years after diagnosis of diabetes. In this study, we identified proteins differential expression in the plasma of diabetic retinopathy patients. These proteins mainly have inflammatory response and coagulation roles, and may be associated with the progression and development of diabetes. In conclusion, we report a comprehensive patient-based plasma proteomic approach to the identification of potential plasma biomarkers for diabetic retinopathy screening and detection.