Correlative design of electrophoretic and ultracentrifugal investigation of metabolic effects of probucol.

Probucol demonstrated a profound metabolic effect on the metabolism of plasma lipoproteins by lowering the levels of circulating low-density lipoproteins (LDL). This main metabolic phenomenon was usually accompanied with other substantial events in lipoprotein patterns. Their significance ought to be confirmed by more than one analytical method. Our primary analytic system used for the basic analysis of plasma lipoproteins consisted of analytical ultracentrifugation, highly standardized agarose-gel electrophoresis and molecular separation of lipoproteins according to their molecular sizes. This paper refers to an attempt to endorse electrophoresis as a supporting technique for ultracentrifugal studies. Correlation between corresponding ultracentrifugal classes and electrophoretic fractions, declared by their coefficients, were therefore studied in order to further examine the usefulness and applicability of agarose-gel electrophoresis in the research, as well as in determining and monitoring patient therapy. Close correlations were found between the group of chylomicrons (CHY), very-very-low-density lipoproteins (VVLDL), very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL), intermediate-density lipoproteins (IDL), their remnants and the entire pre-beta-electrophoretic complex of plasma lipoproteins (r=0.91). CHY, VVLDL and VLDL were also well related to the alpha 2- and pre-beta 2-electrophoretic fraction (r=0.95). However, if we consider concentration units for comparison of the relation between pre-beta 1- and beta-electrophoretic fractions versus all sub-classes of LDL, such correlation was found weaker (r=0.77); results were similar when such correlation was made with HDL2,3 classes versus alpha electrophoretic fractions (r=0.78). On the contrary, when the relative percentage in the spectra of the same classes and fractions were correlated, the correlation coefficients were different: CHY and all subclasses and remnants of VLDL, versus the entire pre-beta-electrophoretic complex demonstrated r=0.87, versus the alpha 2- and pre-beta 2-electrophoretic fraction r=0.73. The electrophoretic pre-beta 1-beta-complex correlated weakly (r=0.50) with low and medium density lipoproteins (MDL). Unexpectedly tight (r=0.89) was the correlation between relative percentages of the electrophoretic alpha 1-fraction and the high-density lipoproteins (HDL).