Beta 2-microglobulin and its binding activity in serum from patients with SLE.

Repeated determinations of beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2m) and beta 2-microglobulin binding activity (beta 2m ba) in serum were performed during a follow-up of 23 patients with SLE. beta 2m was determined by a radioimmunoassay. Individual mean values were raised in 65% of the patients. The mean value for all patients, 2.9 mg/l, was significantly higher than that of the controls. The beta 2m concentrations parallelled the clinical disease activity in several cases with different disease manifestations. The beta 2m ba was determined by precipitation of 125I-labelled beta 2m with polyethylene glycol. Increased beta 2m ba was found in 26% of the SLE patients with the 90th percentile in 40 healthy subjects being taken as the upper normal limit. There were, however, no significant differences between the mean values for beta 2m ba in the patients and the controls. Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), suffering exacerbation of their disease, had a higher mean beta 2m ba than those with less active disease. Variations of the serum beta 2m ba occurred especially in patients with active disease but did not seem to reflect the clinical course. The beta 2m ba was recovered in the IgG peak when SLE serum was subjected to gel chromatography on Sephadex G-200.