Abstract
Dialysed, unconcentrated 24 h specimens of urine from 24 normal, non-pregnant women, 28 normal pregnant women and 12 women with pre-eclampsia were examined using disc electrophoresis. The normal pregnant group showed minor variations from the non-pregnant group. In particular a significantly raised transfer-rinuria was noticed. The pre-eclamptic group showed albuminuria and transferrinuria which was significantly greater than in the normal pregnant group, and the transferrin excretion was found to be 26 times as great as in the normal non-pregnant group. U-LDH was inconstant, but the LDH isoenzyme pattern showed a low LDH-I and/or raised LDH-III, IV and V activity. The raised albumin excretion is explained by increased albumin synthesis in pre-eclampsia. It is suggested that similar conditions hold true for the excretion of transferrin. The characteristic shift of the LDH isoenzymes is considered to be due to renal ischaemia.