Contribution to the Development of Clinical Application of Polarographic Protein Wave

Abstract

Polarographic behaviour of filtrate substance can be attributed to serum mucoprotein, which is mainly contained in α-globulin and exists as either free or combined form; the latter is transformed into the former by the procedure of serum denaturation. In opposite to the cancer diseases, in most cases of liver parenchym-damages the content of serum mucoproteins decreases below the normal value, showing the loss in vital reactivity. From the experimental data, the present author assumes that the mucoprotein can be reproduced in the liver cells and participate in the course of reparatory process.Although the physiological role of mucoprotein remains yet unknown, we have found that the serum mucoprotein is the essential factor affecting the mechanism of clinical tests, such as heat-coagulation serum tests, for example, Weltmann method or cobaltritests, while the urinal mucoprotein is the essental factor of Donaggio test. Comparing the chemical and polarographic methods of investigating mucoprotein, it has become clear that both results show a parallelism and the serum mucoproteins have heterogeneous structure with respect to the SH or S-S groups, or to the polysaccharide protein. From the experiments with the isolated serum protein fractions, it has become evident that the wave height in the polarographic digest test depends mainly on the ratio of the contents of serum globulin and albumin in the serum. The paper electrophoretic technique in combination with polarographic protein test, proposed by Homolka, is an excellent method for finding the qualitative changes of protein fractions in the case of various diseases. Concerning the significance of double wave, the assumption made by Balle-Helaers, that the first wave represents the polysaccharide and the second the SH or S-S group of protein molecule, agrees well with our observation that the decrease in first wave by the denaturation is always accompanied by the decrease in polysaccharide content.