Figure 2. Selected significant associations between erythrocyte and retinal or optic nerve lipids after gas chromatographic analyses.
Erythrocyte arachidonic acid (C20:4n-6) was positively associated with retinal C20:4n-6 (rSpearman = 0.833, P<0.01) and optic nerve C20:4n-6 (rSpearman = 0.828, P = 0.04). Erythrocyte docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n-3, DHA) was negatively associated with retinal DHA (rSpearman = −0.733, P = 0.02) whereas no significant association emerged between erythrocyte and optic nerve levels of plasmalogens (evaluated by dimethylacetals, DMA).