Studies on Serum-Fractions

Abstract

It was shown in a series of reports (a) that antihorse-serum precipitin can be produced by immunizing rabbits with antigen-antibody (immune horse-serum) complexes (1), (b) that two fractions, “A” and “B”, related to antibodies can be distinguished (1, 2) and (c) that antibody-globulins (diphtheric antitoxin-globulin and pneumococcal antibody-globulin) constitute only a part of these fractions (4). It was also shown that antitoxic immunization seems to cause an increase in the A-fraction (a fraction reacting with antiserum against antitoxic globulin) whereas antibacterial immunization seems to be followed by an increase in the B-fraction (which reacts with antiserum prepared with the specific precipitates of pneumococcal SSS) (2). This would seem to indicate a possible antigenic relationship of different antibacterial antibodies on the one hand and of different antitoxins on the other. In this report we deal with the relation between the B-fraction and pneumococcal, typhoidal, Shiga-dysenteric and plague-antibody globulins.