Fatty acid patterns during plasma fractionation

When albumin is prepared from human blood plasma by the cold ethanol method, nonesterified long chain fatty acids present in the plasma do not strictly copurify with albumin. About half of them are lost to the varioius globulin fractions precipitated in the first steps of the fractionation procedure. A different behavior is observed for the short chain fatty acid, caprylic acid. On the other hand, if fractionation of plasma proteins is done by ammonium sulfate precipitation, both long and short chain fatty acids remain with the albumin.