Studies of rat alkaline phosphatase I. Development of methods for detecting isoenzymes.

A manual system of various estimations of rat plasma alkaline phosphatase activity has been devised for small volumes of plasma which uses different inhibitors, compares the utilisation of two substrates and includes acrylamide gel electrophoresis. The different inhibitors etc. allow a degree of discrimination between alkaline phosphatase extracts of rat organs. The properties of isoenzymes, e.g. intestinal phosphatase, differ depending upon the environment in which they are studied. In conjunction, if necessary, with the methods described for the estimation of liver and intestinal alkaline phosphatase activity, it is hoped to use the system to discriminate between the isoenzymes present in the plasma alkaline phosphatase of rats in toxicological studies.