Crossed immunoelectrophoresis of mouse serum

Because crossed immunoelectrophoresis (X-IEP) is quantitative and offers more information than immunoelectrophoresis (IEP), we selected X-IEP to study various physiologic and pathologic effects on the antigen composition of mouse serum. We therefore needed and X-IEP map of normal mouse serum. This paper presents one that we have developed, along with brief descriptions of how the mouse serum antigens were identified. Cross-reactivity between several mouse and human serum antigens was especially helpful. Some data from using ratios of the areas of precipitation of detected antigens to that of an internal standard antigen, alpha-macroglobulin, are presented. They show that X-IEP readily detects quantitative abnormalities among any of the several serum antigens detected by this technique, and that 'normal' values for these antigens in one population of mice can be established in the same way of using ratios with just a few analyses.