Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Date of Graduation
Spring 2019
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1697-2619
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science (BS)
Department
Department of Integrated Science and Technology
Advisor(s)
Robert L. McKown
Abstract
Current diagnostics of dry eye disease are unable to identify the multiple complex causes of dry eye, thereby limiting the proper treatments of the disease. The tear glycoprotein lacritin has been reported to be decreased in dry eye patients, specifically those with Sjӧgren’s syndrome associated dry eye. Therefore, the use of lacritin in a diagnostic test for dry eye could improve the current diagnostics available. Western blot assays have revealed the presence of an active lacritin monomer as well as an inactive tissue transglutaminase cross-linked polymer in human tears. A third isoform of lacritin, the splice variant lacritin-c, has also been detected in human tears. Using a diagnostic multiplex western blot assay, the three lacritin isoforms were quantitated in forty samples of human tears from twenty adults and analyzed using JMP software. This provided a baseline distribution of percent lacritin in human tears that will be used in future lacritin clinical trials.
Recommended Citation
Justis, Brooke, "Levels of human tear lacritin isoforms in healthy adults" (2019). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 687.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/687
