Unraveling the equine lymphocyte proteome: differential septin 7 expression associates with immune cells in equine recurrent uveitis

PLoS One. 2014 Mar 10;9(3):e91684. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091684. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Equine recurrent uveitis is a spontaneous, lymphocyte-driven autoimmune disease. It affects horses worldwide and presents with painful remitting-relapsing inflammatory attacks of inner eye structures eventually leading to blindness. Since lymphocytes are the key players in equine recurrent uveitis, we were interested in potential changes of their protein repertoire which may be involved in disease pathogenesis. To create a reference for differential proteome analysis, we first unraveled the equine lymphocyte proteome by two-dimensional sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and subsequently identified 352 protein spots. Next, we compared lymphocytes from ERU cases and healthy horses with a two-dimensional fluorescence difference in gel electrophoresis approach. With this technique, we identified seven differentially expressed proteins between conditions. One of the significantly lower expressed candidates, septin 7, plays a role in regulation of cell shape, motility and migration. Further analyses revealed T cells as the main cell type with decreased septin 7 abundance in equine recurrent uveitis. These findings point to a possible pathogenetic role of septin 7 in this sight-threatening disease.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blotting, Western
  • Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Horse Diseases / immunology*
  • Horses / immunology*
  • Lymphocyte Subsets / metabolism
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Proteome / metabolism
  • Recurrence
  • Septins / metabolism*
  • T-Lymphocytes / metabolism*
  • Uveitis / immunology
  • Uveitis / veterinary*

Substances

  • Proteome
  • Septins

Grants and funding

Research was supported by grants of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to CD; DFG SFB 571-3 A5 and DE 719/4-1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.