What is it about?
The meibum is the secretion from the oil producing meibomian glands along human eyelids. This is an oil rich substance that will merge with the human tear fluid to contribute certain critical properties to tear function. In dry eye disease, the quality of the tear is defective, and this can be partially explained by selected lipids being too high or too low in quantity.
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Why is it important?
The chemistry of dry eye is a very important area of focus for many pharmaceutical industry players. Dry eye, affecting up to a third of the population, does not have a satisfactory treatment currently, and various companies are advocating lipid containing eyedrops as therapy. Knowledge of lipid abnormalites therefore has great significance in medicine.
Perspectives
The complexity of lipids in meibum makes it difficult for artificial lipid replacement to achieve the same function in dry eye patients.
Prof Louis Tong
National University of Singapore
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Meibum Lipid Composition in Asians with Dry Eye Disease, PLoS ONE, October 2011, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024339.
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