Phosphoglucomutase (PGM) Type Determination by Agar Gel Electrophoresis

Good separation of the PGM components of human erythrocytes is obtained by starch gel electrophoresis, which, however, is a relatively complicated, labourious, timeconsuming and expensive method. By the present agar gel technique the PGM components can be separated at room temperature. The method requires a small amount of blood, a relative short duration of electrophoresis and is cheaper and more simple than the original starch gel method. The three common PGM phenotypes are easily demonstrated by the agar method. The patterns of two rare variant types are shown. Probably, most of the rare PGM phenotypes can be detected by the agar method. It may be concluded that the agar gel method is advantageous to the starch gel method for practical PGM type determinations.