Detection of biclonal gammopathy by capillary zone electrophoresis in a cat and a dog with plasma cell neoplasia

Abstract

Gammopathies associated with plasma cell neoplasms in a 15-year-old female spayed domestic shorthaired cat and a 9-year-old female spayed Rottweiler dog were evaluated by serum protein electrophoresis. In the cat, the plasma cell neoplasm was found in the liver and spleen, and an evaluable sample of bone marrow was not obtained. Some of the plasma cells had the morphologic appearance of flame cells. The paraprotein was confirmed as IgG based on agar gel immunodiffusion precipitation and both immunocytochemical and immunohistochemical staining. The dog had multiple myeloma with production of IgG and IgA paraproteins. In both cases, serum proteins were evaluated by 2 methods of protein electrophoresis: cellulose acetate electrophoresis (CAE) and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). In the cat and the dog, CAE showed a single large oligoclonal-like peak, which occurred in the γ-region in the cat and the β-γ-region in the dog, whereas CZE showed a biclonal gammopathy with 2 very close narrow spikes in the γ- and β-γ-regions in the cat and dog, respectively. In selected cases, CZE may be more effective than routine CAE in distinguishing oligoclonal from monoclonal or biclonal paraproteinemia.

Serum proteins and their diagnostic utility in veterinary medicine: a review

“…Reports on mono-or oligoclonal gammopathy in small animals are more numerous, and were found in cases with erythrophagocytic multiple myeloma, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinaemia, as well as chronic canine ehrlichiosis with persistently increased antibody titres (Perille and Matus 1991;Webb et al 2008;Jaillardon and Fournel-Fleury 2011). Biclonal gammopathy has also been described in a cat and in a dog with plasma cell neoplasia and light-chain multiple myeloma (Yamada et al 2007;Facchini et al 2010). Polyclonal gammopathy reflects the presence of a diffuse hypergammaglobulinaemia, in which all immunoglobulin classes may be increased.…”

Multiple Myeloma in Horses, Dogs and Cats: A Comparative Review Focused on Clinical Signs and Pathogenesis

“…

in dogs. Further, the largest retrospective study to date (60 dogs) included 30 males and 30 females [27].The mean age of diagnosis in cats ranges between 12.5 and 14 years, and most of the cats with MM are older than 7 year-old [28,29,4,30,31,32,33,9]. According to the literature, the youngest cat with MM was 1.5 year-old [31].

…”

Electrophoretic techniques: the old and the new

“…Currently, capillary electrophoresis (also called capillary zone electrophoresis, CZE) is one of the electrophoretic techniques available to separate proteins and diagnose protein abnormalities. Recent publications in Veterinary Clinical Pathology ( VCP ) have demonstrated the use of this technique in very different animal species and in a variety of protein abnormalities 8–11 . However, cellulose acetate and agarose gel electrophoresis are still used as reported in previous papers in VCP 12–21 .…”

“…Giordano and Paltrinieri 8 demonstrate that CZE offers several advantages compared with the other electrophoretic techniques, but one must use CZE‐specific reference intervals. The higher resolution of CZE compared with cellulose acetate electrophoresis in detecting gammopathies is described by Facchini et al 9 As Seelig et al 22 describe in their paper, cellulose acetate or agarose gel serum protein electrophoresis is a less sensitive technique for detecting M‐protein compared with immunofixation electrophoresis. However, CZE can detect M‐protein in human patients above a certain level 23 ; use of CZE in detecting monoclonal proteins in animals still has to be validated.…”

“…Recent publications in Veterinary Clinical Pathology (VCP) have demonstrated the use of this technique in very different animal species and in a variety of protein abnormalities. [8][9][10][11] However, cellulose acetate and agarose gel electrophoresis are still used as reported in previous papers in VCP. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Currently, most papers describe CZE in comparison with cellulose acetate or agarose systems.…”