Precipitation and Complement Fixation Reactions With Residue Antigens in the Non-Hemolytic Streptococcus Group

Abstract

The orderly dassification of non-hemolytic streptococci has met with the same difficulties as has that of the hemolytic group. Earlier studies failed entirely to recognize the distinction based upon the action of the organisms upon red cells, although this had been clearly pointed out as early as 1903. Later dassifications based upon erythrocyte and fermentation reactions (1-3) were arbitrary, but were made to serve as a fair basis for the comparison of different strains. The agglutination and agglutinin absorption methods were found roughly to confirm them, but clear-cut results were not secured (4-7).The complement fixation reaction, as employed by Floyd and Wolbach (4), failed to yield additional information. Using the clear centrifugate from broth cultures, Barnes (8) studied flocculation reactions in immune sera, but failed to clarify the subject perceptibly. His results were later shown by Krumwiede and Valentine to have been in reality thread reactions (9).Kinsella and Swift (10), employing antiformin antigens, showed by means of complement fixation that an inverse ratio exists between fixability of antigen and fixation range of corresponding antiserum, and were accordingly able to separate their organisms into two main groups, with a few connecting strains. Kinsella later (11) showed that one of these groups showed pronounced cross-fixation with the hemolytic family, whereas the other lacked this property entirely. Howell (12) was unable to confirm these results in tolo, although she found a certain amount of irregular cross-fixation among her organisms.

The Enterococci and Related Streptococci

“…We have been rewarded only with sera which are type-specific but not group-specific. This, perhaps, is the expected finding in view of the works of Hitchcock (1924) and of Lancefield (1925a, b) on the non-hemolytic streptococci. But our few trials do not justify a conclusion that Streptococcus lactis contains no group antigen; only that it does not belong to serological group D, of which Streptococcus fecalis is a member.…”

The Streptococci

“…Serological methods have not proved useful tools for the classification of these streptococci. The specific carbohydrate appears to be type specific in the viridans streptococci (Lancefield, 1925a(Lancefield, , 1925bHitchcock, 1924b), instead of group or species specific as in the case of the hemolytic forms. Hence they form a serologically heterogeneous group which is not amenable, for purposes of taxonomy, to the invaluable Lancefield technique.…”

Streptococcus salivarius and Other Non-hemolytic Streptococci of the Human Throat

“…(Tillett and Francis, 1930;Lancefield, 1934Lancefield, , 1941Sherman, 1938;Sherman, Smiley and Niven, 1940.) However, the investigations of Lancefield (1925aLancefield ( , 1925b and Hitchcock (1924bHitchcock ( , 1928 gave no evidence of such group-specific antigens in the viridans streptococci, although the existence of an antigen of broader than type specificity in the hemolytic streptococci was at that time known through the work of Hitchcock (1924a). On the other hand, the existence of many serological types among the viridans streptococci has of course long been known and these organisms have been considered very heterogeneous from the serological point of view, some investigators finding almost as many serological types as cultures which they studied.…”