Characterization of the antibodies detected by the microscopic agglutination test for bovine leptospirosis

Abstract

The nature of the antibodies detectable by the microscopic agglutination test for bovine leptospirosis was examined. Density gradient ultracentrifugation, gel filtration and disulphide-bond-reduction experiments indicated that antileptospiral agglutinating activity was present in both IgM and IgG immunoglobulin fractions. This was confirmed by selective precipitation of specific antibody classes and ion-exchange chromatography.

The Antibodies Involved in the Human Immune Response to Leptospiral Infection

“…Rabbits, on the other hand, were found by Graves and Faine (1970) to produce high levels of IgG as well as IgM agglutinins. Moreover, both IgM and IgG classes of antibody contributed to the agglutinating activity of immune cattle sera (Morris and Hussaini, 1974). In immune guinea-pig sera, IgM was the predominant agglutinin until the 19th day of infection (Crawford, 1972), when IgG agglutinins appeared and soon predominated.…”

Determination of specific anti-leptospiral immunoglobulins M and G in sera of experimentally infected dogs by solid-phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

“…During the initial stage after infection a positive IgM titre was observed by the ELISA in three out of five dogs, whereas the agglutination titre was still entirely negative. (Sulzer et al, 1975;Adler et al, 1980), cattle (Morris and Hussaini, 1974;Tripathy et al, 1975;Bey and Johnson, 1978b), dogs (Bey and Johnson, 1978a), rabbits (Adler and Faine, 1978), and guinea pigs (Crawford, 1972). The anti-leptospiral activity of IgM and IgG has been demonstrated in immunoglobulin fractions of serum using the microscopic agglutination test (Crawford, 1972;Morris and Hussaini, 1974;Adler and Faine, 1978;Bey and Johnson, 1978a;Adler et al, 1980), the leptospiricidal assay (Bey and Johnson, 1978a, b) and the growth inhibition test (Tripathy et al, 1975).…”

“…(Sulzer et al, 1975;Adler et al, 1980), cattle (Morris and Hussaini, 1974;Tripathy et al, 1975;Bey and Johnson, 1978b), dogs (Bey and Johnson, 1978a), rabbits (Adler and Faine, 1978), and guinea pigs (Crawford, 1972). The anti-leptospiral activity of IgM and IgG has been demonstrated in immunoglobulin fractions of serum using the microscopic agglutination test (Crawford, 1972;Morris and Hussaini, 1974;Adler and Faine, 1978;Bey and Johnson, 1978a;Adler et al, 1980), the leptospiricidal assay (Bey and Johnson, 1978a, b) and the growth inhibition test (Tripathy et al, 1975). Selective inactivation of IgM agglutinins by treatment of sera with 2-mercaptoethanol (Crawford, 1974;Sulzer et al, 1975) or dithiothreitol (Morris and Hussaini, 1974;Fathally and Coghlan, 1980) has also been employed.…”

Immunogenicity of boiled compared with formalized leptospiral vaccines in rabbits, hamsters and humans

“…Humans differ, by producing only IgM antibody, resembling the response following natural infection in which they respond with mainly IgM antibody (Adler & Faine, 1978a), while animals produce both IgM and IgG antibodies (Graves & Faine, 1970;Morris & Hussaini, 1974;Crawford, 1972). Although the capacity of serum to protect hamsters depended on the titre of agglutinins and both classes of antibody protected, IgG antibodies persist for longer than IgM and thus stimulation of IgG antibodies would be desirable in vaccination.…”