CHEMICAL, CLINICAL, AND IMMUNOLOGICAL STUDIES ON THE PRODUCTS OF HUMAN PLASMA FRACTIONATION. XXXVII. THE METAL-COMBINING GLOBULIN OF HUMAN PLASMA 1

Abstract

The separation of the proteins of human plasma into a series of fractions and subtractions, uniform with respect to certain physical properties, has gen- erally led also to the separation of proteins with respect to their chemical and biological properties. Among the properties that have long been recog- nized has been the binding of metals by the plasma so that the metals were no longer freely dialyzable (1). When plasma fractionation was undertaken, early in the war, the Committee on Blood Substitutes of the National Research Council were informed that "investigations of the distribution of . . . metals known to be combined with proteins in the blood, such as copper, zinc, and iron, are planned and will be subsequently reported, as will studies upon the hormones and other physiologically important components of human plasma for which methods of bio-assay are available. We feel keenly that these should now be studied in the large amounts of human plasma fractions becom- ing available as by-products of the preparation of human albumin for transfusion in shock" (2).