Antigenic heterogeneity of gonococcal pili.

Abstract

Pili were isolated from two different strains of gonococci (33 and 2686) and demonstrated to be pure by the criteria of electron microscopy and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in sodium dodecyl sulfate. Each purified pili preparation was studied for its ability to inhibit; (a) binding of 124-I-labeled purified 2686 pili by antibody to 2686 pili, and (b) binding of 125-I-labeled purified 33 pili by antibody to 33 pili. In each instance progressive inhibition of binding was produced by homologous pili type, but no significant inhibition was observed using comparable weights of the heterologous pili type. These results indicate that the pili of strains 2686 and 33 are antigenically different.

The Effect of Specific Antiserum on the Resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to Intracellular Killing by Phagocytes of Human Blood

“…Clearly, this simple relation between the types does not hold for the neutralization of resistance to killing by phagocytes (Table 3) indicating that different antigens may be involved. At present, it is unknown if any of the antigens responsible for the above biological effect are related to other strain-specific antigens that have been described such as pili (Buchanan, 1975;Novotny & Turner, 1975) and outer membrane proteins (Johnston et al, 1976).…”

The Surface Properties of Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Isolation of the Major Components of the Outer Membrane

“…Indeed preliminary experiments indicate that these components are among the major antigenic determinants of the strain (P. Lambden, unpublished observations). Previous attempts at serological classification of gonococci have utilized LPS (Glynn & Ward, 1970), pili (Buchanan, 1975;Novotny & Turner, 1975) and a major outer membrane protein (Johnston et al, 1976)~ but several of these preparations were heterogeneous. The methods described here should allow production of purer antigens and perhaps extend the specificity of these tests.…”

The Preparation and Properties of and Pili from Variants of Neisseria gonorrhoeae P9

“…Although preliminary studies (Brinton et al, 1978) suggest that immunization with gonococcal pili can protect volunteers against challenge with the homologous gonococcal strain, a major problem in the development of an effective pilus vaccine is the large number of different pilus immunotypes (Brinton et al, 1978;Buchanan, 1975). This difficulty will be compounded if organisms with either a or / 3 pilus types are each virulent for man, since the antibody-mediated pilus agglutinations clearly demonstrated antigenic differences between the two types of pili.…”

“…Despite this evidence of a common function for gonococcal pili the reported subunit molecular weights and amino acid compositions suggest significant structural variation in pili isolated from different strains (Robertson et al, 1977;Buchanan et al, 1978;Brinton et al, 1978). This was reflected in marked antigenic variation among the gonococcal pili.…”