High resolution two-dimensional protein electrophoresis in clinical chemistry.

High resolution two-dimensional (2D)-electrophoresis has been developed to the stage that it is possible to resolve several thousand proteins in cells and tissue, and over six-hundred proteins are separated in human serum. The 2D-technique has been applied to analyses of serum from patients with multiple myeloma, macroglobulinemia and other gammopathies, and to separate apolipoproteins and study abnormalities and polymorphism of these proteins. Cerebrospinal fluid from patients with various neurological diseases has been studied by 2D-electrophoresis and seems to yield information on multiple sclerosis. The 2D-technique has been applied to normal and malignant cells and biopsies, and offers a possibility to detect disease-related proteins. Protein spots from 2D-gels may be used to raise monoclonal antibodies which subsequently can be used to develop simple clinical chemical tests for disease markers. The 2D-electrophoretic method is, however, not yet suitable as a typical routine analysis in the clinical chemistry laboratory, but is primarily a research tool of considerable potential.