Serum alkaline phosphatase isoenzymes in hepatobiliary disorders resolved by use of immobilized pH gradients

This new method for fractionating alkaline phosphatase isoforms in hepatobiliary disorders is based on isoelectric focusing on a mixed-type polyacrylamide support containing an immobilized pH gradient with a superimposed carrier-ampholyte gradient. The high-M(r) alkaline phosphatase forms typical of hepatobiliary disease (>1 mega-dalton), which cannot migrate into the Immobiline gel, are disaggregated in zwitterionic detergents (the most effective being sulfobetaine 3-12)-20 g/L in the sample, 5 g/L in the gel - suggesting that they are still complexed with membrane fragments or that they tend to aggregate spontaneously in solution. These isoforms focus in the pl 5-6 range (while alkaline phosphatases in normal serum focus in the pl 4-5 interval) in immobilized pH gradients, but behave as strongly acidic components by agarose isoelectric focusing in the presence of carrier ampholytes, suggesting that they are strongly complexed with the latter. On treatment with neuraminidase, the low-pl isoforms in normal serum focus in the pl 5-6 range typical of the hepatobiliary isoforms, suggesting that the latter are poorly glycosylated. By a second-dimension run, in a porosity gradient, followed by activity staining, all alkaline phosphatase forms that have entered the Immobiline gel in the first dimension (normal forms and high-M(r) species) exhibit the same M(r) (ca 140,000 Da), suggesting that no new chains are synthesized in hepatobiliary disorders.