Immunoelectrophoretic Examination of Agammaglobulinæmia

Abstract

IT is now well established that congenital agammaglobulinæmia is associated with multiple serum protein deficiencies ; the sera of these patients lack 7S γ-globulins, 19S γ-globulins or β₂M globulin, and β₂A globulin¹. Good et al.^2,3 have recently reported that the sera of patients with agammaglobulinæmia contain three proteins not found in normal human sera and they have termed them β₂K, β₂E and γ₁A globulins; their work was performed with antiserum from a horse immunized against human serum by Dr. P. Grabar. A review of our own immunoelectrophoretic patterns as well as those of Grabar et al. has failed to reveal any protein constituent other than C-reactive proteins in the sera of agammaglobulinæmic patients which is not ordinarily detectable in normal sera. Consequently the work reported here was undertaken to re-investigate this matter.