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Allergic mediators in tears: what's new?
Author(s) -
Leonardi A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.2015.0088
Subject(s) - tryptase , immunology , medicine , biomarker , immunoglobulin e , allergy , tears , pathogenesis , disease , allergic conjunctivitis , pathological , immune system , mast cell , allergic response , inflammation , antibody , pathology , biology , biochemistry
Summary The identification of inflammatory mediators in tear fluid have been used in ocular allergy: (a) to identify a ‘disease marker’; (b) to understand the immune mechanisms involved; (c) to correlate the severity of the disease; (d) to identify potential targets for therapeutic interventions; (e) as an indicator of treatment outcomes. Limitations of these findings are the lack of extensive validation of candidate biomarkers and the lack of determination of the specificity of the candidate markers. The increased concentrations of mast cell derived mediators in tears, such as tryptase and histamine, have been considered biomarkers of allergic IgE‐mediated response, while ECP levels is considered a specific biomarker of both allergic IgE‐ and non‐IgE‐mediated allergic conjunctivitis. The increased production and activation of cytokines, growth factors, imbalance between MMP s and TIMP s, are all involved in the pathogenesis of conjunctival inflammation, remodeling and corneal changes typical of chronic severe allergies. It is possible that patients with diseases can have a different protein profile and, therefore, protein or peptide analysis can be used as a possible fingerprint for disease biomarkers and pathological molecule identification.