A clinical significance of serum GOT isozymes in hepatic diseases

We studied a clinical significance of serum mitochondrial GOT activity in various hepatic diseases by a simple chromatographic technique. The minicolumn chromatographic procedure with use of DEAE Sephadex A 50 proved to be satisfactory in the separation of serum GOT isozymes, making it suitable for clinical practice. m-GOT is a normal constituent of human serum with the enzyme activity below 4mIU. Of various liver diseases, the increase of m-GOT is related to the degrees of hepatic necrosis or activity of illness and its determination is useful as a supplemental procedure of hepatic disease. Moreover, the increased ratio of m-GOT to total GOT in alcoholic liver disease has most clinical value. Further study is warranted to investigate the question of whether it might be possible to trace the extent and the type of mitochondrial damage in liver disease more precisely by determining m-GOT activity.