Cerebrospinal fluid gamma-globulins in subacute sclerosing leucoencephalitis.

Immunoelectrophoresis, gel filtration-electrophoresis and immuno-gel filtration of cerebral fluid samples obtained from five patients with subacute sclerosing leucoencephalitis and known to contain an abnormal gamma-globulin fraction (gammac) produced strong evidence that the gammac-globulin is made up of several components of small molecular size. This fraction is obviously not homogeneous, since some of the cases show more than one precipitate on immuno-gel filtration with immune serum against y-globulin. The gammac appears to be closely related to the Fab-fragment of human gamma-globulin.