Localization of prealbumin in human eye.

Although the aqueous humor contained several serum proteins and the concentration of each protein was very low in normal eyes, the aqueous/serum ratio of prealbumin was reported to be higher than the ratios of other human aqueous proteins in a previous paper. This study investigated the possibility of the intraocular synthesis of prealbumin, by examining postmortem human eyes using the peroxidase-antiperoxidase method. The immunohistochemical survey revealed the presence of prealbumin in the nonpigmented layer of the ciliary epithelium and in the ganglion cell layer of the retina. Some cells situated on the inner side of the internal nuclear layer of the retina also showed staining. We believe that this is the first study to demonstrate the possibility of synthesis of prealbumin in the human eye by immunohistochemistry.