Lema Gesto, María IsabelRegueiro, Uxía López López, Maite2025-03-202025-03-202025https://hdl.handle.net/10347/40405Keratoconus (KC) is a progressive corneal ectasia that leads to severe visual impairment and remains one of the leading causes of corneal keratoplasty worldwide. Family history is one of the main risk factors for its development, and corneal biomechanical weakness represents a hallmark of the early stages of this pathology, in which the corneal tissue progressively weakens as the disease progresses. The molecular factors and pathways involved in the early and atrisk stages of the disease are still largely unknown. In this sense, this work focuses on identifying tear proteomic biomarkers and pathways related to corneal biomechanical weakness and KC at-risk stages. Furthermore, new insights into lactoferrin’s involvement in the KC disease and its immunomodulatory capacity as a therapeutic approach are also provided.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Corneal biomechanicskeratoconustear proteomics320109 Oftalmologíadoctoral thesisopen access