ABSTRACT
A rapid thin flat gel isoelectric focusing method followed by ultrasensitive silver staining was developed for the determination of apo E phenotypes. Using this method, apo E phenotypes and allele frequencies in 63 normal individuals, 70 patients with hyperlipidemia and 11 patients with familial hypereholesterolemia (FH) in Nanjing were examined. TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C, VLDL-C, VLDL-TG in these cases were also measured. The relative frequency of the ?4 allele is significantly lower while the relative frequency of the ?3 allele is higher in this group than in the Caucasian group. Plasma TG, VLDL-TG, VLDL-C and VLDL-C/VLDL-TG are higher in the apo E3/2 phenotype, and lower in the apo E4/3 phenotype, wherea splasma TC, LDL-C levels are lower in the apo-E3/2 and higher in the apo E4/3 phenotype. It implies that the ?2 allele has the action of increasing TG-rich lipoprotein particles and reducing ch-rich lipoproteins in plasma, while the ?4 allele has an effect opposite to that of the ?2 allele. The highest prevalence of the ?4 allele was associated with type Ⅱb hyperlipoproteinemia (HLP), while that of the ?2 allele was associated with type Ⅲ-HLP. The frequency of ?2, ?4 are higher in FH patients as compared with normal subjects.