Objective Evaluation of Patients with Rheumatic Diseases. II. Paper Electrophoretic Studies of Serum Glycoprotein and Protein from Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis1

Abstract

Paper electrophoretic techniques were applied to analyses of serum protein and glycoprotein components from patients with rheumatoid arthritis of various degrees of severity. The increase of serum glycoprotein in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is due to increases of the carbohydrate rich globulin fractions relative to the carbohydrate poor albumin fraction and an increase of the carbohydrate content of the alpha-1 and alpha-2 globulin fractions. Changes in the alpha-globulins are most closely related to inflammatory activity in rheumatoid arthritis as the carbohydrates associated with alpha-1 and alpha-2 globulin and the alpha-2 globulin protein increased with increasing clinical activity. A decrease of albumin protein occurred with increasing severity of the disease. Total serum glycoprotein (expressed as hexose polysaccharide as a percentage of the serum protein) exhibited the highest correlation with clinical activity, and consequently is to be recommended as the most satisfactory laboratory method of those studied for evaluation of the status of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.