Discovery and Detection of Dry Eye Disease Protein Biomarkers Using Soft Contact Lens Tear Sampling

Dry eye disease (DED) affects up to half of the worlds population and causes blur, eye pain, decreased quality of life. Unfortunately, many people do not receive proper treatment due to current challenges associated with DED diagnoses. To address this issue, point-of-care (PoC) clinical tear film diagnostics are beginning to be used for rapid in-office testing. However, these diagnostics also have significant obstacles, including challenges associated with tear sampling. We previously demonstrated how soft contact lenses (SCLs) can be used to capture and concentrate tear proteins on the eye. Given the low tear volume associated with DED subjects, SCL sampling holds great potential to improve DED PoC diagnostics and facilitate prompt treatment for patients. Here we show the detection of new and established DED protein biomarkers using our SCL sampling method. Our analysis revealed associations between DED tear proteins and the immune system, ferroptosis, salivary secretion, and calcium binding proteins. We also identified correlations between clinical DED testing and proteomics, emphasizing the power and importance of translational medicine research. These experiments lay the foundation for both SCL sampled tear protein biomarker discovery as well as improved diagnostic testing to improve DED patient care. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=99 SRC="FIGDIR/small/23290182v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (20K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1b5cb73org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@402036org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@2e263org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@15ce306_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG