Plasma Concentrations of the Urate-Binding Alpha1–2-Globulin in Patients with Different Types of Primary Gout as Compared to Healthy Control Subjects

Abstract. The relationship between the plasma concentrations of the urate-binding alpha_1–2, globulin in patients with different types of primary gout and in healthy control subjects has been studied by an immuno-assay method based on diffusion in antibody-agar plates. Plasma from 33 different individuals was investigated including healthy control subjects, asymptomatic, normouraemic subjects from a gouty kindred previously shown to have reduced plasma urate-binding capacities, patients with and without an incomplete hypoxanthine-guanine-phosphoribosyl-transferase (PRT) deficiency associated with gout, as well as one case of LeschNyhan syndrome and one case of xanthinuria. In gouty subjects previously demonstrated to have a reduced urate-binding capacity and in their asymptomatic relatives with this defect the plasma concentrations of the urate-binding alpha_1–2 globulin were reduced to 25% of the values found in healthy control subjects. This protein deficiency could hardly result from hyperuricaemia as protein concentrations within normal limits were found in three subjects with gout associated with an incomplete PRT-deficiency as well as in the case of LeschNyhan syndrome. The finding of a normal protein concentration in these last cases further indicates that the urate-binding alpha_1–2 globulin deficiency may represent an additional modality in which the pathogenetic heterogeneity in primary gout can be expressed.