Uveitis is a recurrent, inflammatory eye disease that occurs in the retina, iris, ciliary body and choroid. Currently, the detailed mechanism is still unclear. Proteomics can offer a powerful set of tools for the direct high-throughput study and a key contribution to the understanding of protein functions. This approach can also allow us to compare the protein profiling of the cells in healthy and diseased states that can be used to identify proteins associated with disease development and progression. In the present study, we first established an autoimmune uveitis (EAU) rat model. On day 12 after immunization, we isolated the rat retinas from both normal and EAU animals to collect total proteins. Using tandem mass tag (TMT) peptide labeling coupled with LC-MS/MS quantitative proteomics technique, we identified the differentially expressed proteins in EAU rat retinas, performed bioinformatics analyses, validated the expression of the COX1, NADH1, C3, and C9 proteins, and determined the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels. The results indicated that there were 190 upregulated and 103 downregulated proteins in EAU rat retinas. Bioinformatics analysis revealed the differentially expressed proteins were mainly involved in acute inflammatory response, visual perception and eye photoreceptor cell differentiation that were mainly related to complement and coagulation cascades, phagosome, PI3K-Akt signaling, and metabolic pathways. In conclusion, based on the TMT-based quantitative proteomics technique, the differentially expressed proteins in EAU rat retinas were mainly associated with complement and coagulation cascades and metabolic pathways. Our findings will facilitate the understanding of the pathogenesis of uveitis and will be useful for subsequent studies.

葡萄膜炎是一种反复发生的炎性眼病，发生在视网膜，虹膜，睫状体和脉络膜中。目前，具体机制仍不清楚。蛋白质组学可以为直接的高通量研究提供强大的工具，并为理解蛋白质功能做出重要贡献。这种方法还可以使我们比较处于健康和患病状态的细胞的蛋白质谱，可用于鉴定与疾病发展和进展相关的蛋白质。在本研究中，我们首先建立了自身免疫性葡萄膜炎（EAU）大鼠模型。免疫后第12天，我们从正常和EAU动物中分离出大鼠视网膜以收集总蛋白。使用串联质量标签（TMT）肽标记结合LC-MS / MS定量蛋白质组学技术，我们鉴定了EAU大鼠视网膜中差异表达的蛋白质，进行了生物信息学分析，验证了COX1，NADH1，C3和C9蛋白的表达，并确定了三磷酸腺苷（ATP）的水平。结果表明，在EAU大鼠视网膜中有190种上调蛋白和103种下调蛋白。生物信息学分析表明差异表达的蛋白质主要参与急性炎症反应，视觉和眼感光细胞的分化，这主要与补体和凝血级联，吞噬体，PI3K-Akt信号传导和代谢途径有关。总之，基于基于TMT的定量蛋白质组学技术，EAU大鼠视网膜中差异表达的蛋白质主要与补体和凝血级联以及代谢途径有关。