ABSTRACT

One of the major activities in clinical chemistry is the study of enzymes. A very great amount of the research in clinical laboratory practice is directed to the study of enzymes, and actual enzyme measurements represent a very significant portion of the total work load of the clinical laboratory. In contrast, enzyme studies of urine are not made with great frequency, and the practical utility of urine enzyme measurements is far less than that of serum enzyme measurements. The enzymes are all proteins which may vary quite widely in molecular size. Lysozyme or muramidase is a relatively small protein with a molecular weight of 15,000. Urine enzymes may provide clinical information which supplements or corroborates information from other sources. In other instances, the information obtained by study of urine may be quite unique. Urine may contain either normal end-products or metabolites as well as excreted medications and their derivatives.