Killeen Anthony A, Ossina Natalya, McGlennen Ronald C, Minnerath Sharon, Borgos John, Alexandrov Vadim, Sarvazyan Armen
Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
Mol Diagn Ther. 2006;10(6):371-80. doi: 10.1007/BF03256214.
Detection of serum monoclonal proteins is a common laboratory analysis used in the evaluation of patients with B-cell disorders. Since many individuals with elevated immunoglobulin have no symptoms, it is important to have simple methods for initial screening of patients with suspected B-cell disorders.
Samples of serum from healthy donors and from patients with elevated immunoglobulin levels were tested using a technology named Droplet MicroChromatography (DMC). DMC was developed at Artann Laboratories (West Trenton, New Jersey, USA) for the rapid assessment of changes in the composition of serum. DMC is based on the dynamics of the sediment pattern formation during drying of a fluid microdroplet.
Results of this pilot study confirm the hypothesis that the pattern formation created by drying droplets of serum would differ between normal samples and those containing monoclonal proteins. Reproducible differences in the patterns formed by the two types of specimens are shown. Strong correlation between abnormally elevated levels of immunoglobulins in the serum of myeloma patients and the patterns formed by drying droplets of serum indicates that the DMC technique may be suitable for semi-quantitative analysis of serum samples. We also demonstrate that computer identification of the drying droplet structure and dynamics is a tractable issue.
DMC has significant diagnostic potential and can serve as a basis for development of a simple, rapid, and inexpensive method for initial screening of patients suspected of having multiple myeloma and other pathologies of lymphoid origin that are associated with the overproduction of monoclonal immunoglobulins. The DMC test requires only approximately 1 microL of serum and could therefore be performed in any facility where it is safe to work with serum.
血清单克隆蛋白检测是评估B细胞疾病患者时常用的实验室分析方法。由于许多免疫球蛋白升高的个体没有症状，因此拥有简单的方法对疑似B细胞疾病患者进行初步筛查很重要。
使用一种名为液滴微色谱法（DMC）的技术对健康供体和免疫球蛋白水平升高患者的血清样本进行检测。DMC由Artann实验室（美国新泽西州韦斯特特伦顿）开发，用于快速评估血清成分的变化。DMC基于流体微滴干燥过程中沉积物图案形成的动力学。
这项初步研究的结果证实了以下假设，即正常样本与含有单克隆蛋白的样本在血清微滴干燥产生的图案形成方面存在差异。展示了两种类型标本形成的图案中可重复的差异。骨髓瘤患者血清中免疫球蛋白异常升高水平与血清微滴干燥形成的图案之间的强相关性表明，DMC技术可能适用于血清样本的半定量分析。我们还证明了通过计算机识别干燥液滴的结构和动力学是一个可解决的问题。
DMC具有显著的诊断潜力，可作为开发一种简单、快速且廉价的方法的基础，用于对疑似患有多发性骨髓瘤和其他与单克隆免疫球蛋白过度产生相关的淋巴源性疾病的患者进行初步筛查。DMC检测仅需约1微升血清，因此可以在任何能够安全处理血清的场所进行。
