Visual Mnemonics for serum protein electrophoresis

Since its description and introduction to clinical practice, serum protein electrophoresis has been useful as a first-line test for serum albumin and globulins and to identify monoclonal gammopathies, agammaglobulinemia, polyclonal production of immunoglobulins, and increase/decrease of other proteins. The electrophoresis drawing provided by laboratory shows five main protein fractions of serum. Nevertheless, it is sometimes difficult for students, residents, nurses, and non-specialized medical practitioners to remember and recognize these fractions. After dealing with this difficulty with medical students and residents, we propose here an easy to remember, visual mnemonics for this purpose. Image below shows the schematic representation of a normal serum protein electrophoresis densitometric scanning with the albumin fraction α-1, α-2, β, and γ peaks.

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Visual Mnemonics for serum protein electrophoresis

Source: Medical Education Online