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Healthy human subjects possess a complex repertoire of autoantibodies, which may be distinct from that of patients with certain Glaucoma staging system diseases. Autoantibody profiling may therefore generate disease-specific biomarkers. In this study, Grus et al. (144) analyzed the profiles of autoantibodies directed against bovine optic nerve antigens between two cohorts of glaucoma patients (POAG or NPG) and healthy subjects, from the USA and Europe.
Glaucoma patients have altered antibody profilesThe authors used an autoantibody profiling technique based on Western blotting, digital image analysis and sophisticated statistical methods involving neural networks. The two key findings were that consistent changes existed between autoantibody repertoires of glaucoma and normal subjects in both study populations. Further analysis of the immunoreactive band that most discriminated healthy and glaucoma subjects was performed by tandem mass spectrometry. The 120-kDa band was identified as β -fodrin, which is a major neuronal cytoskeletal protein, thought to be involved in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.