Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of sera from patients with primary liver carcinoma

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that in sera from patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma a number of protein fractions are depressed, γ-globulin often elevated and the haptoglobin zones become unclear. The most characteristic change in the polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic patterns was the presence of a unique additional band situated in the albumin and the α 1-lipoprotein region. This band proved to be α-fetoprotein by the simple immunochemical procedure done on segments obtained from polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Serum α-fetoprotein was detected by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in 7 out of 16 patients with established primary hepatocellular carcinoma. The lowest limit of sensitivity of this technique was 30 mg per 100 ml. Some additional bands were observed in sera from the patients with primary liver carcinoma, but the nature of these proteins remains to be elucidated. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis is very useful for the separation of serum proteins arid the transfer of acrylamide gel on an agar plate for the immunochemical technique serves further in the identification of unknown abnormal proteins.