α₂マクログロブリン欠乏症

抄録

We found 11 cases with extremely low level of α₂ macroglobulin in serum (α₂ macroglobulin deficiency). All of them were patients with advanced prostate cancer. Their sera gave no precipitation line on immunoelectrophoresis with antisera against α₂ macroglobulin and against whole human serum. The serum levels were determined to be below approximately 10mg/dl with Laser-nephelometry. The gene conformation in one patient was determined to have no change by PCR test. On the other hand, the Western-blotting after SDS-PAGE separation of the sera in the three patients showed many bands at the position of smaller size (≤360K dalton) that were assigned to the fragments of α₂ macroglobulin, and only trace amount of whole α₂ macroglobulin (720K dalton) was detected. These results suggest that the deficiency developed from the acceleration of α₂ macroglobulin degradation rather than suppression of the production.