No microheterogenous changes of plasma C-reactive protein found in man during various diseases

Increased levels of the acute phase protein C-reactive protein (CRP) in pla sma may indicate severe acute abdominal disease, risk of serious postoperat ive complications or malignancy; serial measurements may indicate postopera tive complications, relapse of intra-abdominal sepsis and complications dur ing acute pancreatitis. The increase in CRP is an unspecific acute phase re action, however, and low levels do not exclude these conditions. These fact s are important obstacles to the clinical routine use of CRP measurements. The aim of this study was to look for possible biochemical microheterogenei ty of CRP in single plasma samples from various large groups of patients to overcome these problems. Two-hundred-and-twelve patients with acute abdomi nal diseases, 274 patients with various forms and stages of cancer and 134 patients operated on due to benign diseases, were studied. The biochemical studies included SDS-PAGE, native PAGE and gel filtration for molecular wei ght determinations, isoelectric focusing and crossed immuno-electrophoresis for electrophoretic mobility studies and Concavalin A and ACA 34 as interm ediary gels for possible lectin binding or complexation. Western blot analy sis was also used to identify CRP. In summary, however, these more elaborat e biochemical methods could not disclose any microheterogneity of CRP in pl asma and thus did not add any diagnostic information to the crude levels.