Syndecan-1 isolated from patient samples exists in an intact form.

To assess the size and to establish the intactness of the syndecan-1 in vivo, syndecan-1 was isolated from bone marrow plasma of 3 patients with myeloma (lanes b-d) and pleural fluid from 2 patients with myeloma (lanes e-f). Purified syndecan-1 from the U-266 cell line is shown in lane a. Four microliters of each sample was loaded onto a precasted gel (4% to 15%). Proteoglycans were detected by combined alcian blue/silver staining.27