Use of cationic disc electrophoresis near neutral pH in the evaluation of trace proteins in human plasma.

Cationic discontinuous electrophoresis can be carried out at pH 6.0 With excellent resolution in urea-containing acrylamide gels with potassium as the leading ion, 3-picoline as the trailing ion, and cacodylic acid as the buffer. This analytic technique has consistently demonstrated trace protein abnormalities in plasma or serum from febrile patients. It has made possible the detection of three protein bands that were obscured in similar electrophoretic assays at pH 3.8 A rough parallelism is found in the plasma (or serum) content of the five protein bands regardless of the apparent clinical cause of the febrile state.