Comparison of electrophoretic techniques for the analysis of human tear fluid proteins

Five electrophoretic techniques were tested for application to the analysis of human tear proteins: disc-, SDS- and gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, immunoelectrophoresis and isoelectric focusing. Protein patterns obtained from pooled normal tear fluid, tear fluid from keratoconjunctivitis sicca patients and from patients with chronic non-infectious conjunctivitis were compared. The four major components of human tear fluid were purified and their positions within the separation patterns were determined. The highest resolution and the clearest differences between the patterns of the three tear samples were obtained by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.