Evaluation of current methods for creatine kinase isoenzyme fractionation.

I have evaluated electrophoretic, ion-exchange, kinetic, selective activation, and immunological methods of fractionating creatine kinase isoenzymes for diagnostic purposes. The last three were unsuitable. Electrophoretic methods had superior resolution and reliability, but were relatively insensitive when conventional film-drying techniques were used. With elution from the film, sensitivity was comparable to that of the ion-exchange methods. Electrophoretic methods require more skill than the other methods. Ion-exchange methods had acceptable resolution and reliability with potentially superior sensitivity; they require less skill than electrophoresis, but require about as much time. Batch operation of ion-exchange yielded superior efficiency and sensitivity, and was otherwise comparable to column operation.