Separation of CK isoenzymes on DEAE-sephadex A-50 at neutral pH

The MM, MB and BB isoenzymes of human creatine kinase (CK) were separated by elution from micro-columns of DEAE-Sephadex A-50 with Tris buffer containing increasing concentrations of NaCl at pH 7.0, instead of pH 8.0 as has commonly been used. Since pH 7.0 is close to the pH optimum of CK, this allowed the use of four times larger aliquots of the eluates for the estimation of CK activity and, consequently, a 4-fold increase in sensitivity. Using serum specimens from patients with acute myocardial infarction, there was a good correlation of the CK-MM (r = 0.99) and CK-MB (r = 0.93) activities obtained with the two buffer systems. Similarly, normal sera had CK-MB and CK-BB activities of less than 2 U/l with both buffer systems. Comparison of the composition of serum proteins in the eluates by conventional electrophoresis revealed that although the distribution of CK isoenzymes separated by the two buffer systems was similar, the distribution of proteins at pH 7.0 showed an appreciable shift of protein from the MB to the MM eluates.