Electrophoretic studies of the serum proteins in biliary cirrhosis

Immunocytochemical study of gamma globulin in liver in hepatitis and postnecrotic cirrhosis

Gamma globulin was demonstrated by immunocytochemical fluorescence technique in many reticuloendothelial cells of the hepatic sinusoids and of the fibrous tracts in various forms of hepatitis and in postnecrotic cirrhosis. In other liver diseases and in normal livers, even in the presence of hypergammaglobulinemia, few if any gamma globulin-containing cells were found. In contrast, spleen and lymph nodes showed no difference between postnecrotic cirrhosis or hepatitis and other types of cirrhosis or non-hepatic hypergammaglobulinemias. The gamma globulin-containing cells in the liver are on cytologic grounds considered reticuloendothelial cells showing transition to plasma cells and exhibiting little or no phagocytosis of tissue breakdown products. These cells are assumed to form rather than engulf gamma globulin. The possibility that the gamma globulin formed represents antibody to liver cell breakdown products is discussed.

Plasma lipoproteins in liver disease. I. Immunologically distinct low-density lipoproteins in patients with biliary obstruction

Sera from patients with extrahepatic biliary obstruction were found to have an abnormal lipoprotein (obstructive lipoprotein) which failed to react with antibodies to normal lipoproteins of d < 1.063. Preparations of this abnormal lipoprotein made by a combination of immunoprecipitation and multiple polyanion precipitations revealed a high content of free cholesterol (26%) and phospholipids (61%) but only trace amounts of cholesterol esters and triglycerides. Protein content varied from 13% to a corrected low of 5% when ultracentrifugation was also performed. Amino acid analyses of the latter preparations resembled that of lipoproteins of d < 1.006. The reasons underlying the apparent unreactivity of the abnormal lipoprotein were explored. No evidence could be found for soluble antigen-antibody complexes of gamma-globulin and the abnormal lipoprotein, nor for inhibition of antigen-antibody complex formation by serum factors. Purified preparations of obstructive lipoprotein did not react with antisera to high- or low-density lipoproteins prepared from normal sera. Moreover, rabbits immunized with the abnormal lipoproteins produced specific antibodies to this lipoprotein which reacted with a d < 1.006 lipoprotein in normal sera. All other lipoprotein fractions from normal sera were unreactive. It is not known whether this lipoprotein is abnormal by virtue of the presence of a unique peptide or because of secondary alterations in lipoprotein structure.