Pregnancy-associated molecular variants of human serum transcortin and thyroxine-binding globulin.

Affinity chromatography on immobilised concanavalin A revealed that transcortin and thyroxine-binding globulin isolated from human postpartum serum contained approximately 10% of molecular variants that did not occur in these glycoproteins isolated from normal donor serum (both male and female). The chromatographic behaviour of the pregnancy-associated glycoprotein variants, their monosaccharide compositions, and the results of methylation analysis indicated that these variants contained only triantennary oligosaccharide chains of the N-acetyl-lactosamine type.