| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dr. George suggests that electrophoretic measurement of albumin would have been preferred to the bromocresol green method used in the Hitachi 911. A recent paper (8) raised questions about the reliability of electrophoresis in quantifying different bands of protein including albumin concentration in birds, and it remains undetermined whether electrophoresis provides a more reliable method for determining plasma or serum albumin concentration in birds than the bromocresol green technique. Moreover, when deriving a factor (such as Atot) from another factor (such as albumin concentration), which is in the denominator, it is preferable that the second factor be measured as reliably as possible, with accuracy being of lesser importance. It was for this reason that we indexed Atot to three measures of protein concentration in the manuscript. In addition the reported mean of albumin concentrations in our article (15.5 ± 1.5 g/l) was well within the reference value for pigeons as published by Harr (6).
Dr. George raises the issue as to whether total solids is the correct term, referencing her article (3). The authors were aware of this paper but a brief review of the literature since 2001 using a PubMed search suggests that total solids remains widely used as a term, presumably because of its descriptive brevity. For instance, the term total solids was used in studies describing the serum biochemistry of calves (9), black stork nestlings (7), southern stingrays (1), and bonnet head sharks (5). The authors also agree with Dr. George that the term total protein determined by a total solids technique may be more appropriate. Interestingly, Dr. George used the term refractometer protein in an earlier publication (2). The authors consider Dr. George's suggestion that high plasma glucose concentrations may have caused the increased total solid reading on the refractometer. High plasma glucose concentrations were observed consistently in all birds in our study and this aspect needs additional studying.
Finally, we believe Ref. 12 was correctly cited to indicate comparative accuracy of refractometry in various species. Dr. George's 2001 paper examined the association between refractometer and biuret protein concentrations in peritoneal, pleural, and pericardial fluids from horses (n = 16), cattle (n = 5), dogs (n = 3), llamas (n = 2), and one cat (2).
FOOTNOTES
Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: H. Stämpfli, Ontario Veterinary College, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 (e-mail: hstaempf{at}uoguelph.ca)
REFERENCES
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| Visit Other APS Journals Online |
