Sera ofIt has been shown that chemically induced primary and transplantable hepatomas of mice and rats synthesize and secrete into the blood a specific protein of the embryonal serum, af-globulin (Abelev, 1963(Abelev, , 1965 Abelev et al., 1963a, b ; Grabar et al., 1965;Perova and Abelev, 1967). This protein which possessed distinct antigenic properties is a dominant component in the a-globulin fraction of foetal serum. It is usually discerned during embryonal and the first three weeks of neonatal life of mice and rats. It has not been detected in four week old or older animals. Synthesis of a/-globulin was found to resume in primary and transplantable hepatomas, though not in all cases. This protein could not be detected in a number of tumours of other than hepatic origin. Tatarinov (1964Tatarinov ( , 1965 has demonstrated that this phenomenon, af-globulin synthesis, takes place in patients with primary carcinoma of the liver. He suggested that this test could be used in the differential diagnosis of primary and metastatic liver tumours. He showed that the test was specific for hepatocellular tumours

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Human embryonic prealbumin (EPA) was purified from pooled fetal sera by a combination of the salt precipitation methods, ion‐exchange chromatography and electro‐isofocusing. Purified EPA preparations had about 80% peptide and 20% carbohydrate including mannose, fucose, glucose, galactose, glucosamine and galactosamine. Amino acid composition of EPA may be characterized by high concentration of aspragin. glutamine acids and proline but very low concentration of methionine. By immunodiffusion in agar, EPA was found in all fetal sera and in some malignant tissue homogenates including carcinomas of ovary, breast, stomach, lung, kidney, and intestinal tract.

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