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Rob Weighill and Florence Gaub. 2018. The Cauldron: NATO's Campaign in Libya. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 392 pp. The entire book is devoted to exploring the background, strategy, results, and [...]

Lukas Engelmann. 2018. Mapping AIDS: Visual Histories of an Enduring Epidemic. New York: Cambridge University Press. 254 pp. Lukas Engelmann offers a comprehensive view of HIV/AIDS from a mostly pictorial [...]

Sabella Ogbobode Abidde (ed.). 2018. Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean: The Case for Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. xiv, 251 pp. This book portrays the titular [...]

PURPOSE. To determine whether corneal surgery andthe mode of post-surgical treatment influence the distribution of plasminogen,plasmin, angiostatins and α[sub 2] -macrogobulin in tear fluid. METHODS. Subjects underwent either photorefractive keratectomy (PRK), insertionof intra-stromal corneal rings (ICR), or cataract ablation followed by insertionof an intra-ocular lens (IOL). Post-surgical treatment consisted of prophylacticuse of antibiotic and anti-inflammatory agents followed either by patchingfor 24 hours, or covering the wounded cornea with a bandage soft contact lens.Open eye tear fluid (OTF) was obtained prior to surgery and 10 minutes afterpatch removal or 24 hours after surgery and thereafter with the bandage lensstill in place. After centrifugation, supernatants and controls were westernblot analyzed using a protocol designed to allow the simultaneous semi- quantitativedetection of α2-macroglobulin, plasminogen, plasmin, angiostatins andinterleukin-8 (IL-8). RESULTS. No obvious differences were apparent in OTF recovered from contralateralcontrol eyes compared to the surgical eyes in individuals who underwent PRKsurgery and whose eyes were covered with a bandage contact lens. In contrast,OTF samples recovered 10 minutes after patch removal from all individualscontained elevated levels of α2-macroglobulin and a diverse mixture ofelevated levels of plasminogen/plasmin, angiostatins and possibly a plasmin-a1-antiplasmincomplex. All of these changes were seen, albeit to a lesser extent, in thepatched control OTF samples. IL-8 could not be detected in any sample. Thecomposition of the tear film returned to near normal on subsequent sampling24 hours after patch removal. CONCLUSIONS. Patching results in a marked increase in the concentrationof various proteins which could modulate inflammation and wound healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tear film is complex and is rich in both peptides and proteins. Physiological factors have been shown to alter the balance of the protein components in the tear film, however, little is known of the precise stimuli that initiate these changes, or their nature and extent. Attention has been directed at the role of tear proteins in the protection of the external ocular surface, and their potential role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, but few lacrimal-specific proteins have been identified and demonstrated to offer a protective function at the ocular surface. The biological importance of proline-rich proteins is uncertain, although there is some evidence to indicate a potential antimicrobial function for these proteins in saliva. Despite the detection of mRNA for proline-rich proteins in lacrimal gland, the translated protein product has not been detected in tear fluid. In this study we investigate the presence of proline-rich proteins in the tear film. Human reflex tear fluid was examined by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry directly, and following size exclusion high performance liquid chromatography. This revealed significant levels of a truncated form of lacrimal proline-rich protein, and a series of peptides derived the C-terminus of this protein. None of these had previously been identified in tear. Our study highlights the dangers inherent in proteomic strategies that assign an identity to a protein based on limited coverage of tryptic peptides.