The Agglutination Reactions of Haemophilus Paraphrophilus and H. Paraphrohaemolyticus, and Some Observations on the Agglutination of H. Aphrophilus and H. Haemoglobinophilus (H. Canis)

Abstract

HITHERTO the agglutination reactions of only a few species of the genus Haemophilus have been investigated. Non-capsulate H. infruenzae strains were found to be heterogeneous (Park, Williams and Cooper, 1918;Valentine and Cooper, 1919;Kristensen, 1922;Allison, Gordon and Zinnemann, 1943), but different polysaccharide capsular antigens were demonstrated by Pittman (1931) and six serological types are recognised on this basis. Khairat (1940) noted that the species H. aphrophilus was serologically distinct from the X-dependent, V-independent species H. haemogZobinophilus and H. hfluenzaemurium; he could not determine whether his new species H. aphrophilus was homogeneous or not, because all his strains had been isolated from one subject. Alexander (1948) reported that H. parainfluenzae and H. suis could be divided into capsular and non-capsular types; she stated that five capsulate H. suis strains were immunologically identical and were not related to H. infruenzae and that there appeared to be more than one capsular type of H. parainfruenzae. The present study was primarily undertaken to define the antigenic relationships of H. paraphrophilus and H. paraphrohaemolyticus within the species, and to other members of the genus.

Numerical Taxonomy of Haemophilus

“…The relative serological homogeneity of H. influenzae has long been known (Pittman,193 l), and Nicolet (1971) has shown similar homogeneity in H. parahaemozyticus; in both cases serological subgroups have been recognized which are concordant with the clusters found here. The grouping of most strains of H. paraphrophilus in phenon 4 is congruent with its serological homogeneity (Frazer et al, 1975) and the heterogeneity of H. paraphrohaemolyticus is reflected in the scattered occurrence of the strains in Fig. 1 (1970).…”