Trisomy 4 in a case of acute biphenotypic leukemia.

Trisomy 4 was the sole chromosome anomaly in a 5-year-old girl with acute leukemia. Morphologically, there appeared to be distinct myeloid and lymphoid blast cells on presentation. Immunophenotyping, however, showed extensive overlap of myeloid and lymphoid markers, confirming the leukemia to be biphenotypic rather than true "bilineal." She attained remission only after lymphoid-cell-specific induction was added to the initial "myeloid type" induction. She relapsed 4 years later with morphologically acute lymphocytic leukemia (French-American-British L2 type) despite still retaining the original immunophenotypic characteristics. She was successfully reinduced and subsequently received an autologous bone marrow transplant. Second relapse, morphologically and immunophenotypically similar to the first, occurred 5 months after transplant.

Applications of fast protein liquid chromatography TM in the separation of plasma proteins in urine and cerebrospinal fluid.

Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography TM (FPLC), in which an anion-exchange column is used, provides rapid separation and reproducible profiling of the plasma proteins in urine and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Chromatographic separation of the proteins takes 1 h for urine specimens and 45 min for CSF. The elution sequence from the anion-exchange column is similar to the electrophoretic mobility. Individual proteins have the same retention times independently of which type of specimen is used. The elution characteristics of 21 plasma proteins have been identified. We illustrated some applications of this system, including the profiling of tubular protein-uria, the isolation of Bence Jones proteins from urine, and the investigation of hemoglobin-derived products in the CSF.

Creatine kinase isoenzyme activity in human placenta and in serum of women in labor.

Creatine kinase (EC 2.7.3.2) isoenzymes in extracts of human placenta and in serum from nonpregnant women and women in labor were separated on columns containing diethylaminoethyl-cellulose and assayed. The distribution of the isoenzymes in placenta (n = 10) was 80% BB (200 +/- 66 U/g (wet weight), 19% MM (49 +/- 30 U/g), and 1% MB (2.6 +/- 1.7 U/g); The geometric mean for the serum BB activity of the nonpregnant women (n = 50) was 0.6 +/- 1.5 U/liter, as compared to 3.0 +/- 1.4 U/liter for patients in labor who had normal deliveries (n = 92). The arithmetic mean for serum BB activity of labor patients with induced labor (n = 20), premature labor (n = 7), cesarian section (n = 6), or hypertension and pre-eclampsia (n = 6) did not differ significantly from the arithmetic mean BB activity for serum of labor patients with normal deliveries. However, the arithmetic mean serum BB activity of patients with stillbirths (n = 7) was significantly smaller than the arithmetic mean for normal labor patients.