Clinical application of capillary electrophoresis to unconcentrated human urine proteins

Urine protein electrophoresis can be performed by capillary electrophoresis using spun unconcentrated urine diluted with running buffer. The separation which utilises the excellent sensitivity of capillary electrophoresis gives electropherograms similar to those obtained by diluting concentrated urine with buffer. A 72 cm x 50 microns internal diameter (ID) fused silica capillary was used for the analysis which took less than 15 min. Bence Jones protein can be detected from unconcentrated urine over urine protein concentrations ranging from 9.7 g/L to 0.04 g/L. Other clinical patterns, such as glomerular proteinuria, the presence of intact immunoglobulin and Tamm Horsfall protein can also be detected. The benefit of using unconcentrated urine is the time and cost saved by not concentrating the urine.