Analysis of autoantibody repertoires in sera of patients with glaucoma

Glaucoma is the second cause of blindness worldwide. It is usually considered a neurodegenerative disease. There is evidence that an autoimmune mechanism is involved in the development of glaucoma in some patients. The aim of this study was to analyze the IgG autoantibody repertoires in sera of glaucoma patients and healthy subjects.

A total of 82 patients were divided into four groups: healthy volunteers without any ocular disorders (CO, n = 30), patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG, n = 19), ocular hypertension (OHT, n = 16), and normal tension glaucoma (NTG, n = 17). All groups were matched for age and gender. The sera of these patients were tested against Western blots of retinal antigens. Immunodetection was done using 4-chloro-1-naphthol staining. The autoantibody patterns were digitized and subsequently analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques.

All patients showed different, complex staining patterns of autoantibodies against retinal antigens. There was an increase in the number of peaks in sera of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) compared to healthy subjects (CO). Including all peaks the analysis of discriminance revealed a statistically significant difference between the patterns of POAG compared to all other groups (p < 0.01). Sera of normal tension glaucoma (NTG) had no statistically different autoantibody pattern compared to those of control subjects.

In this study, we demonstrated a difference in the IgG autoantibody patterns of primary open-angle glaucoma patients compared to healthy subjects. However, the patterns were not significantly different in normal tension glaucoma compared to control subjects.