Apoptotic death ligands and interleukins in the vitreous of diabetic patients

Summary BACKGROUND: To investigate the role of apoptosis in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy we determined vitreous concentrations of Fas ligand (FasL), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), lymphotoxin alpha (LT-α) and interleukin 1beta (IL-1β) in diabetic patients and non-diabetic control subjects. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In the present case-control study measurement of vitreous concentrations of the four apoptosis-related factors FasL, TNF-α, LT-α and IL-1β was performed using Cytometric Bead Array technology in 48 patients with diabetes mellitus (8 non-insulin dependent, 40 insulin dependent) and 24 non-diabetic control subjects. RESULTS: FasL, TNF-α, LT-α and IL-1β were not detectable in the vitreous of neither diabetic nor non-diabetic controls samples. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that there is no up-regulation of FasL, TNF-α, LT-α and IL-1β in the vitreous of diabetic patients.