Dye induced alterations in lipoproteins and other plasma proteins

A serendipitous observation that pre-staining of serum with bromo-phenol blue caused marked alteration of the immunoelectrophoretic features of alpha-1 lipoprotein led to examination of the effect of a series of dyes upon this and other serum proteins. Up to the present, eight effects have been distinguished. Five represent different forms of electrophoretic mobility changes, while the others are alterations in, respectively, immuno-precipitin activity, sedimentation characteristics, and diffusion behaviour in aqueous gels. The eight effects vary independently among different dyes for any one protein, as well as among different serum proteins for the same dye. The findings suggest the existence of multiple mechanisms of binding of dyes to proteins, and that pre-staining may provide assistance in a range of different partition procedures involving plasma proteins.