*2.1. Human Samples*

Patients with AMD and controls (without AMD or any other retinal disease) were recruited from the eye clinics at Cole Eye Institute under Cleveland Clinic Foundation approved IRB protocols. Plasma samples were prepared and stored at −80 ◦C. Samples from patients (n = 49, with 26 males and 23 females) given a clinical diagnosis of geographic atrophy or CNV and age-matched controls (n = 59 with 28 males and 31 females) were included in this pilot study to evaluate HA in the plasma. Normal and/or AMD post-mortem eyes were obtained from the Cleveland Eye Bank, the National Disease Research Interchange (Philadelphia, PA, USA) or from the Cole Eye Institute Eye Tissue Repository through the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) Eye Donor Program (Columbia, MD, USA). All post-mortem tissue were obtained in accordance with the policies of the Eye Bank Association of America and the Institutional Review Board of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (IRB#14-057). Eye bank records accompanying the donor eyes indicated whether the donor had AMD or no known eye diseases. The analyzed tissue included FFB donations #714 (82 y.o.), #781 (80 y.o.), #711 (83 y.o.), #722 (90 y.o.), #716 (80 y.o.) and #739 (90 y.o.), identified as AMD. Postmortem eyes from a 95 (#784), 92 (#979) and a 91 year-old donor without a history of retinal disease were used as controls. Eyes were enucleated 4 to 22 h postmortem and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and 0.5% glutaraldehyde in phosphate buffer. The globes were stored in 2% paraformaldehyde in D-PBS.
