Some Properties of a Thermolabile Antigen of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae

The Immunizing Antigens of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae. The Role of the L-Antigen

“…Presumably strains which yield active vaccines are strains which produce a sufficiency of fully developed L-antigen in the medium used, whereas strains which do not yield active vaccines do not produce sufficient fully developed L-antigen. Strains not believed to be capable of yielding active vaccines do, however, produce L-antigen when grown in serum-containing media which is sufficient in quantity or quality to render them agglutinable by anti-L sera (Gledhill, 1947). The fact that although on one occasion strain Ru produced active vaccine in a medium devoid of serum and on other occasions failed to do so, and the fact that strain VYS seems to require liver extract, suggest that all strains in the S-phase might yield active vaccines provided the medium used were suitable.…”

“…Thermolabile L-antigen produced on the surface of cells grown in media containing serum and inactivated with merthiolate, evokes in rabbits circulating antibody capable of' protecting mice and agglutinating suspensions of' cells p w n in the same media. after adsorption with cells grown in media devoid of serum (Gledhill, 1947). Throughout that work the basal medium, to which serum was added, was ordinary meat broth, prepared from fresh horse meat or from a coinmercial dried preparation with 1 yo Evans peptone.…”

“…Cells freed from media were also precipitated, yielding rather better vaccines. It is suggested that cells yield vaccines of high potency when they have produced and retained a relatively large amount of L-antigen.Alert hiolate-killed cells of Erysipdothrix rhusiopathiae grown in serum-containing media are capable of inducing in rabbits circulating antibodies protective for mice (Gledhill, 1947). Preliminary experiments with pigs indicated that whereas some circulating antibodies were also produced by intravenous injection of killed cells, a stronger response was elicited by suspensions of formalin-killed cultures from which most of the cells had been removed by centrifugation (Gledhill, 1948).…”

“…The purpose of this investigation is (1) to confirm that killed vaccines precipitated by aluminium hydroxide gel immunize mice effectively; ( 2 ) to confirm the existence of Traub's soluble antigen; (3) to determine its relationship to the L-antigen developed on the surface of cells grown in serum-containing media (Gledhill, 1947).…”