Specific Agglutination of Treponema Pallidum by Sera From Rabbits and Human Beings With Treponemal Infections

Abstract

For many years it was suspected that a specific immune response develops in the course of infection with Treponema pallidum, but despite attempts by many investigators to demonstrate specific antibodies, only recently have such efforts been successful. Work on this problem led to the discovery of the Wassermann reaction which together with its various modifications that employ lipoid antigens has been found to have a high degree of accuracy in the detection of syphilitic and related infections. However, it is now generally believed that these so called standard serologic tests for syphilis (STS) 1 do not reveal a specific antibody to Treponona pallidum. Moreover, in recent years it has been demonstrated that these tests give positive reactions with sera from a number of individuals who have no history of syphilis or other treponemal disease (1).The development of specific immunity in treponeme infections was first demonstrated by means of neutralization experiments in rabbits (2, 3) by a method which was too time consuming and expensive to be of practical value. Later, the development of the treponemal immobilization test (4) provided for the first time an in ~itro method for the detection of specific treponemal antibodies. However, the technical difficulties of this test have limited its application to a few specially equipped laboratories, and there still remains a great practical need for a simple, specific immunological test that can be used in the general diagnostic bacteriological laboratory.Numerous unsuccessful attempts have been made to develop a diagnostic test that employs treponemes as the antigen for an agglutination reaction. Hoffman (5) and Zabolotny and Maslakowetz (6) were among the first to demonstrate that T. pallidum expressed from syphilitic lesions were agglutinated by the sera of syphilitic individuals. Their findings were confirmed by others (7-11) but most investigations of this problem

Isolation and Purification of Treponema pallidum from Syphilitic Lesions in Rabbits

“…We have recently reevaluated, and slightly modified, an isolation procedure devised some years ago for preparing T. pallidum suspensions for immune agglutination (5). The findings presented here show that treponeme suspensions with high yields of apparently clean organisms can be recovered regularly.…”

Sensibilité et spécificité des tests tréponémiques – en particulier des tests d’immobilisation des tréponèmes et d’immuno-fluorescence

“…Des n o m b re u x tra v a u x p récem m en t consacrés à ces réactio n s ( T a n i [4 7 ,4 8 ], Cain [49], H a rd y et N ell [50], M cLeod et M agnuson [51], E h rm a n n et N ielsen [52], B ekker [53], K ilra y [54], etc.) il resso rt que les m éth o d es proposées c o m p o rte n t de nom breuses différences p o rta n t su r la souche de T P utilisée com m e an tig èn e, le tr a ite m e n t des lapins a v a n t l 'in o c u la tio n , le liq u id e d 'e x tra c tio n des T P , la m éth o d e d 'in a c tiv a tio n , l'a g e n t c o n serv ateu r, le v o lum e des réactifs, la co n c e n tra tio n m a x im u m d u séru m e t la d u rée de la période d 'in c u b a tio n ; il est donc difficile de co m p a re r e n tre eu x les ré s u lta ts o b ten u s ainsi dans des co n d itio n s fo rt différentes.…”

“…M cLeod et Stokes [55] o n t p u m o n tre r que les sérum s sy p h ilitiques c o n te n a ie n t au m oins d eu x a n tic o rp s a g g lu tin a n ts les tréponèm es p âles; l'u n d 'eu x , q u i p ro v o q u e une a g g lu tin a tio n ra p id e a p u être identifié à la réag in e de W a sse rm a n n ; H ardy et N ell [50] o n t pensé p o u v o ir su p p rim e r c e tte actio n a g g lu tin an te de la réagine en p ra ti q u a n t a v a n t la ré a c tio n d 'a g g lu tin a tio n une ab so rp tio n d u séru m par l'an tig èn e d u V D R L ; m ais c e tte m an ip u latio n se ra it in su ffisan te à en croire M agnuson et M cLeod [56].…”

Induced resistance in pigs to Treponema hyodysenteriae infection

“…Researchers working in syphilis research have also reported using an agglutination test for diagnosis of specific T. pallidum antigens (McLeod and Magnuson, 1953;Hardy and Nell, 1955).…”

“…They found that such suspensions gave specific agglutination reactions with T. pallidum-antisera when fresh bovine serum was present in the test mixture. Hardy and Nell (1955) developed an agglutination technique which in volved adsorbing out nonspecific agglutinins from sera with cardiolipin lecithin-cholesterol antigen (VDRL antigen). This enabled the authors to show a specific reaction between treponeme agglutinins and treponeme antigens.…”