Four proteins—CELA3A, CELA3B, and CTRC—are connected to diabetic retinopathy progression, indicating their potential as biomarkers.
Proteomic analysis in a discovery cohort identified 32 differentially expressed proteins in four groups including healthy controls and diabetic patients.
Validation cohort results supported earlier findings, confirming the relevance of CELA3A, CELA3B, and CTRC with various clinical indicators.
ROC curve analysis demonstrated good performance (AUC > 0.7) of the identified hub proteins in distinguishing between stages of diabetic retinopathy.