1 -Antitrypsin deficiency: a variant with no detectable 1 -antitrypsin.

No alpha(1)-antitrypsin could be detected in the serum of a 24-year-old man with advanced pulmonary emphysema by agarose electrophoresis, immnuno-electrophoresis, double diffusion in agarose gel, or alpha(1)-antitrypsin genetic typing by a combination of starch-gel electrophoresis and crossed antigen-antibody electrophoresis. A circulating alpha(1)-antitrypsin inactivator could not be demonstrated. Evidence was obtained in family members of genetic transmission of this new alpha(1)-antitrypsin variant.