Carbohydrate deficient transferrin (CDT) is one of the most reliable markers of chronic alcohol abuse. It consists of a group of minor isoforms of human transferrin (the main iron transport serum protein) deficient in sialic acid groups (asialo, monosialo and disialo) with a pI > 5.7, while the main isotransferrin (tetrasialo) has a pI of 5.4. The aim of the present work was to develop a capillary electrophoretic method to determine CDT in serum, suitable for routine use as a confirmatory technique of the current screening methods based on immunoassays. Serum samples (0.5 mL) were saturated with iron by incubation with 10 mM FeCl3 (9 microL) and 500 mM NaHCO3 (12 microL) for 30 min, then diluted 1/10 in water and injected by positive pressure (0.5 psi for 10 s). Separation was performed with a capillary zone electrophoretic method using bare fused-silica capillaries (20 microm ID, 37 cm in length) and a buffer composed of 100 mM sodium tetraborate adjusted with boric acid to pH 8.3. Applied voltage was 10 kV and temperature 25 degrees C. Detection was by UV absorption at 200 nm wavelength. Under the described conditions, asialo-, monosialo-, disialo-, trisialo- and tetrasialo-transferrin were separated in human serum. The limit of detection (signal-to-noise ratio of 2) was about 0.3% for disialo-transferrin, and 0.4% of trisialo-transferrin, expressed as percentages of the terasialo-transferrin peak area. Relative standard deviations (RSD) of absolute migration times were < 1%, while RSD of relative migration times (on the basis of tetrasialo-transferrin) were < 0.1%. Intra-day and day-to-day peak quantitation precision studies showed RDS ranging from 4 to 9% and from 13 to 24% for disialo- and trisialo-transferrin, respectively. The results from 30 control subjects, including social drinkers, and 13 alcoholics showed disialo- and trisialo-transferrin significantly increased in patients by a factor of about 4.5 (P < 0.0001).