II. Electrophoretic, nitrogen and lipide analyses of plasma and plasma fractions in disease

Abstract

HAWES in the distribution and properties of the plasma proteins noted during disease are of considerable interest to clinicians and investigators. In a recent review of the literature dealing with plasma proteins in disease Gutman’ pointed out that distribution of these proteins is generally not specific for any one disease but is characterized by a decrease in albumin and an increase in various globulin components. Most of the available information is based on electrophoretic studies of plasma and plasma fractions obtained with neutral salt precipitation. The inability to correlate the changes in plasma proteins with a specific disease detracts from the diagnostic value of plasma protein fractionation by present salting-out methods. The carefully controlled fractionation procedures of Cohn and associates2 provide another approach to the study of this problem. Application of these technics to relatively small volumes of dog,” rat” and goat” plasmas reveal changes in the distribution of protein components after injury. In a previous paper6 the plasma proteins of normal young men were fractionated by the low temperature-ethanol procedures and standards were established for the rlectrophoretic. nitrogen and lipide distributions of the plasma fractions. In this investigation these same procedures were applied to the plasmas of patients with a variety of diseases. RESUI.TS