Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Experimental Eye Research

Volume

218

Publisher

Elsevier

School

School of Science

RAS ID

51799

Funders

Australian National Health and Medical Research Council under GNT1116360 (FKC), GNT1188694 (FKC), GNT1054712 (FKC), MRF1142962 (FKC), McCusker Charitable Foundation (FKC), Miocevich Retina Fellowship (RHJ); The Macula Foundation (LAY).

Grant Number

NHMRC Numbers : GNT1116360, GNT1188694, GNT1054712, MRF1142962

Grant Link

http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/GNT1116360 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1142962

Comments

McLenachan, S., Balaratnasingam, C., Jeffery, R. C. H., Chen, S. C., Zhang, D., Chan, G., ... & Chen, F. K. (2022). Anti-retinal IgG antibodies in patients with early and advanced type 2 macular telangiectasia. Experimental Eye Research, 109024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exer.2022.109024

Abstract

Type 2 idiopathic macular telangiectasia (MacTel-2) is a progressive adult-onset macular disease associated with bilateral perifoveal vascular changes, Muller cell degeneration and increased blood-retinal barrier permeability. The pathophysiological mechanisms of MacTel-2 remain unclear, however it was previously reported that anti-retinal antibodies in MacTel-2 patients are a significant feature of the disease. In this study, we aimed to compare the prevalence of anti-retinal antibodies in patients MacTel-2, healthy controls and patients with other retinal diseases. MacTel-2 patients diagnosed with multimodal imaging were enrolled and their disease severities were graded using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. For comparison, patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) or no retinal disease (healthy controls) were recruited as controls. Blood serum samples were screened for immunoglobulin G anti-retinal antibodies by western blotting, followed by densitometry analysis. Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and p < 0.05 considered statistically significant. Overall, anti-retinal antibody-positive cases were older (64 ± 15 vs 53 ± 17 years, p < 0.001) and females were more likely to develop anti-retinal antibodies (OR: 2.41, CI: 1.12–5.18). The frequency of anti-retinal antibody detection in MacTel-2 patients (n = 42, 36%) was not significantly different from healthy controls (n = 52, 25%) or IRD patients (n = 18, 25%) and the majority of MacTel-2 patients had no anti-retinal antibodies. In contrast, the frequency of anti-retinal antibody detection was significantly higher in patients with AMD (n = 15, 73%, p < 0.001). The lack of a greater anti-retinal antibody frequency or specificity in the MacTel-2 cohort suggests that antibody mediated immunological mechanisms may play a less significant role in MacTel-2 disease pathogenesis.

DOI

10.1016/j.exer.2022.109024

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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