Multi-modal proteomic target discovery and orthogonol confirmation of preclinical diabetic retinopathy drug development biomarkers

The aim of this study was to identify proteomic alterations associated with functional dysregulation of the retina with diabetes that could eventually be used as surrogate endpoints in preclinical drug testing studies. A multi-modal approach of antibody (Luminex)-, electrophoresis (2-DIGE)-, and LC-MS (iTRAQ)-based quantitation methods was used to provide broad coverage of the retinal proteome. Transcriptional profiling through microarray analysis was also included to increase coverage and provide insight into potential regulation of protein expression changes at the mRNA level. The different technologies proved complementary, with limited coverage overlap between methods.