In the last several years, five human plasma prealbumin (transthyretin) variants have been discovered in association with hereditary amyloidosis, a late-onset fatal disorder. We recently studied a patient of German descent with peripheral neuropathy and bowel dysfunction. Biopsied rectal tissue contained amyloid that stained with anti-human prealbumin. Amino acid sequence analysis of the patien...

Prealbumin was isolated from human plasma by chromatography on columns of diethylaminoethyl Sephadex and Sephadex G-200, followed by preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The prealbumin was homogeneous in the analytical ultracentrifuge with an s=z~,~ of 3.7 S and with a molecular weight of about 50,000. Prealbumin formed a protein-protein complex with plasma retinol-binding protein in...

BACKGROUND Preoperative malnutrition is increasingly prevalent in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Although prealbumin is a widely used indicator of nutrition status, its use in the preoperative assessment of patients undergoing cardiac surgery is not well defined. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of preoperative prealbumin levels on outcomes after cardiac surgery. MAT...

BACKGROUND Prealbumin, a sensitive marker for protein-energy status, is also known as an independent risk factor for mortality in hemodialysis patients. We investigated the impact of prealbumin on survival in incident peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. METHODS In total, 136 incident PD patients (mean age, 53.0 ± 15.8 years) between 2002 and 2007 were enrolled in the study. Laboratory data, di...

AIMS We are currently witnessing changes in views on the evaluation of serum proteins. A decrease may signal not only malnutrition. It may also be an indicator of simultaneously occurring inflammatory disease. Prealbumin, due to its short half-life, is a suitable indicator of changes in protein-energy balance, but its levels show, as with other serum proteins, a decrease in the case of inflamma...

The primary structures of rabbit and rat prealbumin have been determined. The amino acid sequence of rabbit prealbumin was determined by analyses of peptides obtained by trypsin and Staphylococcus aureus protease digestions. The rat prealbumin sequence was deduced by analyses of tryptic peptides as well as by nucleotide sequencing of cDNA clones. Both amino acid sequences contain 127 amino acid...

BACKGROUND Serum albumin and prealbumin are both negative acute-phase reactants, and usually at low levels in stress. We aim to determine their predictive values for poor outcome of traumatic brain injury (TBI). METHODS A total of 326 patients of TBI were enrolled and followed-up by telephone 6 months after discharge. They were divided into a favorable group (GOS: 3 to 5) and an unfavorable g...

Serum prealbumin level is useful for assessment of changes in nutritional status but it is markedly affected by the inflammation. In this study, we examined the efficacy of the corrected rapid turnover protein increment index (CRII) for prealbumin, which is calculated as [prealbumin level/C-reactive protein (CRP) level on the assessment day]/[prealbumin level/CRP level on the day of starting nu...

Human retinol-binding protein (RBP) and prealbumin were labeled with Z-hydroxy&nitrobenzyl bromide (HNB-Br) at pH 5.5 using 20to loo-fold molar excess of the label over tryptophan in each protein. In prealbumin, only 1 to 1.7 tryptophan residues out of 8 were modified under these conditions. This modification did not alter the capacity of prealbumin to bind to retinol-RBP at physiological ionic...

BACKGROUND We have previously reported that prealbumin and albumin may be sensitive indicators of the risk of recurrent disease in colorectal cancer; however, the relationship between preoperative prealbumin and cancer survival has not been fully-elucidated. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between preoperative nutritional conditions, including prealbumin and albumin co...