STUDIES ON PHENOTYPING OF HYPERLIPOPROTEINEMIAS . EVALUATION OF CELLULOSE ACETATE TECHNIQUE AND COMPARISON WITH PAPER ELECTROPHORESIS

A technique for the electrophoretic separation of serum lipoproteins on cellulose acetate has been developed, evaluated and compared to the paper electrophoretic technique. Consistently sharper delineation and more complete separation of the lipoprotein bands, particularly β and pre-β, were achieved. Sufficient lipid staining material remained at the origin in cases of Types I and V so that no errors in reading involving those types occurred. The improved readability of the cellulose acetate strips was reflected by an improvement in both reproducibility and consistency with lipid fractionation data when compared to paper electrophoretic separation. The great majority of strip readings which disagree with lipid fractionation data represented problems in the estimation of the intensity of staining of particular bands, rather than problems of definition or identification of bands. The error rate was, therefore, not only lower with the cellulose acetate technique, but somewhat less critical clinically. © 1969.