[Lens crystallin leakage in aqueous humor from human cataractous lenses]

The amounts of human lens crystallins in the aqueous humor from various types of cataract patients were measured by radioimmunoassay. alpha, beta and gamma-crystallins as antigens for radioimmunoassay were purified from one-year-old normal human lens by TSK3000SW gel permeation column using high performance liquid chromatography. The amounts of both alpha- and gamma-crystallin in the aqueous humor from the patients with cortical and posterior subcapsular cataract were relatively low but in the case of mature cataract those of both crystallins increased. While the amounts of beta-crystallin in aqueous humor from cortical and posterior subcapsular cataract patients were at the same level compared with alpha-crystallin, those from mature cataract patients showed extremely high values.