{"doi":"10.1111/ceo.14343","title":"Lipids from ocular meibum and tears may serve as biomarkers for depression and post‐traumatic stress disorder","abstract":"BACKGROUND: There is a need to develop biomarkers for diagnosis and prediction of treatment responses in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHODS: Cross-sectional study examining correlations between tear inflammatory proteins, meibum and tear sphingolipids, and symptoms of depression and PTSD-associated anxiety. Ninety individuals filled depression (Patient Health Questionnaire 9, PHQ-9) and PTSD-associated anxiety (PTSD Checklist-Military Version, PCL-M) questionnaires. In 40 patients, a multiplex assay system was used to quantify 23 inflammatory proteins in tears. In a separate group of 50 individuals, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was performed on meibum and tears to quantify 34 species of sphingolipids, encompassing ceramides, monohexosyl ceramides and sphingomyelins. RESULTS: The mean age of the population was 59.4 ± 11.0 years; 89.0% self-identified as male, 34.4% as White, 64.4% as Black, and 16.7% as Hispanic. The mean PHQ-9 score was 11.1 ± 7.6, and the mean PCL-M score was 44.3 ± 19.1. Symptoms of depression and PTSD-associated anxiety were highly correlated (ρ =0.75, p < 0.001). Both PHQ9 and PCL-M scores negatively correlated with multiple sphingolipid species in meibum and tears. In multivariable models, meibum Monohexosyl Ceramide 26:0 (pmol), tear Ceramide 16:0 (mol%), meibum Monohexosyl Ceramide 16:0 (mol%), and tear Ceramide 26:1 (mol%) remained associated with depression and meibum Monohexosyl Ceramide 16:0 (mol%), meibum Monohexosyl Ceramide 26:0 (pmol), tear Sphingomyelin 20:0 (mol%), and tear Sphingosine-1-Phosphate (mol%) remained associated with PTSD-associated anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Certain meibum and tear sphingolipid species were related to mental health indices. These interactions present opportunities for innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for mental health disorders.","journal":"Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology","year":2023,"id":354574,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9606,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":665561,"name":"Amanda Prislovsky","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":680732,"name":"Arianna Tovar","orcid":"0000-0003-2295-3104","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":918719,"name":"Elyana V. T. Locatelli","orcid":"0000-0001-7065-7196","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381072,"name":"Elizabeth R. Felix","orcid":"0000-0002-6239-715X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":489004,"name":"Daniel Stephenson","orcid":"0000-0002-5698-3400","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":489008,"name":"Charles E. Chalfant","orcid":"0000-0002-5844-5235","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":879870,"name":"James Lai","orcid":"0000-0003-1156-8120","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102626,"name":"Colin K. Kim","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275963,"name":"Nawajes Mandal","orcid":"0000-0003-4489-7748","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":288335,"name":"Anat Galor","orcid":"0000-0002-3026-6155","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1102625,"name":"Ashlyn A. Gary","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:11.976628Z","pmid":"38146655","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}