| Abstract: | An immunoenzymatic method for ceruloplasmin analysis (IEA) based on the use of horseradish peroxidase-labelled monospecific antibodies as markers has been developed. IEA can be used for direct measurements of ceruloplasmin in blood serum, as can be evidenced from the coincidence of calibration plots obtained after the use of potassium-phosphate buffer and ceruloplasmin-free sera. The procedure allows the determination of the total content of ceruloplasmin present in the blood sera of patients with hepatocerebral dystrophies both in the active and inactive forms. The minimum ceruloplasmin concentration detectable by this method is 5 x 10(-9) g/ml. The method was used to determine ceruloplasmin levels in the blood of patients with various grades of hepatocerebral dystrophy. Analysis of blood sera from 6 patients revealed that the ceruloplasmin concentrations determined by IEA were very close, whereas the oxidase activities of this protein differed more than 7-fold. The amount of enzymatically active ceruloplasmin as determined from the oxidase activity made up to 10-68% of the total ceruloplasmin content in the sera, depending of the severity of the pathology. |
