To investigate the vitreous proteomic profiles of macular hole (MH) patients compared to donor eyes and epiretinal membrane (ERM) patients.

Ten donor eyes, 25 MH patients (15 MH without posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) and 10 MH with PVD), 10 ERM patients and 4 patients with vitreomacular traction syndrome (VMTS) were enrolled in the present study. The undiluted vitreous samples were obtained from all eyes. Proteins were identified using the micro-RPLC/MS/MS technique and using mass spectrometric data analysis from the IPI database. Proteins were searched for the function, subcellular location and tissue specificity using the Uniprot database.

The mean vitreous protein concentrations were the highest ( p < 0.01) in MH patients without PVD. There were no qualitative changes according to the age of donor eyes. However, the authors newly-identified 12 proteins (i.e. vasorin) in donor eyes. Ten out of 136 proteins (7.3%) (i.e. retinoschisin) were exclusively detected in the MH samples. S100A8 was exclusively detected in eyes without PVD, whereas CD59 was exclusively detected in eyes with PVD.

The results suggest there is a small difference in the vitreous proteomic profiles in MH patients compared to donor eyes or ERM patients, and that the expression of vitreous proteins is closely associated with the presence of PVD.