Serum Globulin Fractions in Chronic Rheumatic Diseases

Abstract

Abstract Investigations into the serum protein patterns that occur in chronic rheumatic diseases, formerly made by salt-fractionation methods, are now revised with the aid of the superior technic of microelectrophoretic separation. Using the microelectrophoretic method, supplemented by a single salt-fractionation procedure, the concentrations of albumin, α1-globulin, α2-globulin, β-globulin and γ-globulin in the sera of 26 patients variously affected by chronic rheumatic diseases were determined. Normal protein patterns were found in all the 12 sera with normal total globulin content, whereas variously abnormal protein patterns were found in all of the 14 hyperglobulinemic sera. The hyperglobulinemia of chronic rheumatic diseases was found most frequently to be due to increments in γ-globulin, often accompanied also by increases in α2-globulin. Less frequently, increased amounts of β-globulin were found, and in some cases an elevation of α1-globulin. These abnormalities were all detectable electrophoretically, whereas the method for the salting-out of γ-globulin was unsatisfactory.