Circulating immonoglobulin M: increased concentrations in endemic and sporadic goiter

Increased concentrations of immunoglobulin M have been found in the circulation of approximately half of patients with either endemic or sporadic nontoxic goiter. Blood was obtained from patients in several iodine-deficient goitrous areas; the patients with sporadic goiter resided in or about New York City. Concentrations of immunoglobulins G, A, and D were normal. Blood for control purposes was taken from patients residing in cities near the goiter areas where there was no iodine deficiency, and in New York City. Most of these samples came from hospitalized patients without known thyroid disease and were collected at random. Chi-square values for the difference between the number of goitrous patients with elevated concentrations of immunoglobulin M and those in the control patients were highly significant statistically.

Materials indistinguishable from iodotyrosines in normal human serum and human serum albumin

Materials indistinguishable from authentic mono- and diiodotyrosines were identified in extracts of normal human serum as well as in extracts of purified human serum albumin. These materials were not found in association with the other serum proteins. Identification of MIT and DIT was made by a technique using rechromatography to constant specific activity, as well as by the Barker wet ash distillation method, which established the compounds in question as being iodinated ones. By two different extraction and chromatographic methods we estimated the amounts of both MIT and DIT present in normal human serum or albumin; the estimates were in good agreement. These compounds together constituted between 19% and 25% of the extractable serum iodine.