Protein profiles derived by automated immune precipitation.

Abstract

This presentation will cover much the same ground as Professor Laurell's but from a slightly different viewpoint. There is no great difference between us, though we use agarose gel electrophoresis only to detect paraproteins. Like others, we feel that scanning the electrophoretogram contributes nothing to the interpretation of the test', as even with high resolution systems the various fractions are composed of mixtures. Instead, we prefer to estimate specific proteins by the automated immunoprecipitation system, and we routinely estimate 12 plasma proteins (albumin, ctl-antitrypsin, haptoglobin, oro-somucoid, ct2-macroglobulin, transferrin, complement C3, complement C4, IgG, IgA, IgM, LDL protein) and can estimate more than 30. The same proteins could of course be estimated by the techniques outlined by Dr Laurell. Specific protein analysis is superior to electrophoresis in that in