Evaluation of two automated capillary electrophoresis systems for human serum protein analysis

We compared automated capillary electrophoresis (CE) systems Capillarys 2 from Sebia and V8 from Helena Biosciences Europe (Elitech) with the semi-automated Hydrasys-Hyrys agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE) from Sebia.

We evaluated analytical performances and compared 129 fresh routine sera (group A) to 164 frozen pathologic samples with suspicion or antecedent of monoclonal component (MC) (group B). Immunofixation was then compared with immunotyping provided by both CE systems.

Analytical performances from both CE systems have proven suitable results for clinical use, with within-run and between-run coefficients of variation inferior or equal to 5.2% and 7.7%, respectively. A good correlation was found between AGE and CE with r-value ranging from 0.81 to 0.96 for both CE systems. We observed high MC detection sensitivities (>85%) of in electrophoretogram readings for both CE systems. MC identification using CE systems provided suitable concordance with immunofixation, although failing to detect some IgM proteins or free light chains.

Both Capillarys 2 and V8 are reliable automated CE systems for patient care.