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Clinical Chemistry 50: 1880-1881, 2004; 10.1373/clinchem.2004.039677
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2004;50:1880-1881.)
© 2004 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Ethanol Precipitation Is Not Reliable for Selectively Removing Nonmonoclonal Peaks Seen in the Fibrinogen Region on Capillary Zone Electrophoresis of Serum Proteins

Koenraad Gijbels, Godelieve Mariën and Xavier Bossuyta

Laboratory Medicine and Immunology, Leuven University Hospitals, Herestraat 49, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium

aAddress correspondence to this author at: Laboratory Medicine, Immunology, Leuven University Hospitals, Herestraat 49, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. Fax 32-16-34-79-31; e-mail xavier.bossuyt@uz.kuleuven.ac.be.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.


To the Editor:

The enhanced resolution of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) provides superior sensitivity for the detection of monoclonal (M) proteins in serum samples compared with agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE). This comes at the cost, however, of a lower specificity, calculated as 78% in our hands for the Paragon CZE 2000® with software version 1.602 (Beckman) (1). Abnormalities in the electropherogram that cause confusion are most frequently located in the anodal part of the {gamma}-globulin fraction. Notably, fibrinogen, which remains in incompletely clotted serum samples, migrates at the junction between the ß- and {gamma}-fractions. Even when following the strict procedure of keeping serum samples for a minimum of 4 h at room temperature before electrophoresis, we found a suspected fibrinogen or possible M-protein peak in 39 (8.6%) of 454 consecutive routine samples in our laboratory.

Recently, a simple method consisting of cold-ethanol precipitation was described for the removal of fibrinogen from serum specimens before agarose protein electrophoresis (2). We evaluated the use of this method in the routine analysis of serum samples by CZE in which a peak at the fibrinogen location could cause confusion with the detection of small M-proteins.

Absolute ethanol was added to the specimens at a final concentration . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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