Yuyan You, Chao Bai, Wei Wang, Tongtong Zhan, Xin Hu, Feier Hao, Maohua Xia, Yan Liu, Tao Ma, Yanhui Liu, Changming Zheng, Tianchun Pu, Yizhuo Zhang, Yanping Lu, Nan Ding, Jing Li, Yanqiang Yin, Yucun Chen, Liqin Wang, Jun Zhou, Lili Niu, Yunfang Xiu, Yan Lu, Ting Jia, Xuefeng Liu, Chenglin Zhang
Approximately 20% of aged captive giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) have cataracts that impair their quality of life. To identify potential biomarkers of cataract formation, we carried out a quantitative proteomics analysis of 10 giant pandas to find proteins differing in abundance between healthy and cataract-bearing animals. We identified almost 150 proteins exceeding our threshold for differential abundance, most of which were associated with GO categories related to extracellular localization. The most significant differential abundance was associated with components of the proteasome and other proteins with a role in proteolysis or its regulation, most of which were depleted in pandas with cataracts...
August 5, 2023: Scientific Reports