Abstract: High-resolution two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(2DE) was used to separate total proteins extracted from neural retinas of diabetic and age-matched control rats and followed by computer assisted image analysis to quantitatively compare the differences in protein expression between diabetic and age-matched control rats. Totally 3122±37(n=3) spots were detected in normal samples and 2702±21(n=3) spots were detected in the samples of diabetic rats. The expression levels of ca. 150 protein spots was different between the control group and diabetic retinas(P<0.05). Compared with the control group, the expression level of 68 protein spots was up-regulated(P<0.05) and 82 protein spots was down-regulated(P<0.05) in diabetic rats, and 20 different expressed proteins were identified by peptide mass fingerprinting(PMF) or peptide sequence. Seven of the identified proteins were proved to be relevant in predicting pathology of diabetic retinopathy(DR) by previous study and ten proteins are newly discovered proteins associated with DR. The results provide a basis for further research on the diabetic retinopathy.

Key words: Diabetic retinopathy, Neural retinas, Proteome, Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis