Proteome patterns in uremic plasma

In patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), peptides and proteins circulate at altered concentrations versus in healthy individuals. We have characterized proteome samples from 7 pooled CKD stage 5 patients not yet on dialysis and with no known co-morbidities. We also analyzed pooled plasma samples from 7 healthy age- and sex-matched controls. After immunodepletion of the 6 most abundant plasma proteins, HPLC and SDS-PAGE patterns differed between the healthy and disease groups. The differing proteins were identified by peptide mass fingerprinting using MALDI mass spectrometry and verified with electrospray tandem mass spectrometry sequence analysis. Multiple differences in at least 19 HPLC fractions were observed, from which we identified 29 proteins, 25 in greater yield and 4 in lower yield than in the healthy controls, adding at least 6 protein components to those that were previously known to be altered in CKD.