The specificity of serological reactions / [Karl Landsteiner].

  • Karl Landsteiner
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The specificity of serological reactions / [Karl Landsteiner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/196 (page 4)
    Substances inciting the formation of and reacting with antibodies are termed antigens (agglutinogens, precipitinogens, et cetera); poisons incit- ing the formation of neutralizing antibodies (antitoxins) are called toxins; and the clumping of blood corpuscles, or release of haemoglobin from these cells, are referred to as haemagglutination and haemolysis, respectively. Haemolysis and bacteriolysis (the dissolution of bacteria) by serum require not only specific lysins (Ehrlich’s amboceptors), but in addition a labile agent present in fresh blood serum, called complement (alexin) [see (i)]. The designation “normal” or “natural0’ in distinction to “immune” antibodies is applied to agglutinins, lysins and other agents which occur in the serum of untreated animals and in their effects are similar to those of the antibodies resulting from injection of antigens. The immune antibodies all have in common the property of specificity, that is, they react as a rule only with the antigens that were used for immunizing6 or with similar ones, for in- stance, with proteins or blood cells of one species, or particular bacteria, and closely related varieties. Hence a general method for differentiating proteins, distin- guishable only with great difficulty or not at all by the chemical methods available, was furnished through the discovery of the precipitins, and it was found that specific proteins characterize every species of animals and plants. The specificity of antibodies, whose range of activity was later found to extend far beyond the proteins and to include simple chemical substances, underlies the practical applications of serology and constitutes one of the two chief theoretical prob- lems, the other being the formation of antibodies. A complete understanding of the specific serum reactions on the basis of current chemical theories has not yet been reached, and thus far the phenomena of serological specificity have not been re- produced satisfactorily in experiments with substances of known chemical composition. The reactions appear to belong to a particular branch of chemistry which probably includes 6 In amplification of its original meaning the term “immunization” is commonly also used when antigens are not harmful and the antibodies which are formed have no protective or curative action. Similarly, all sera which contain antibodies as the result of the injection of antigens are called “immune sera” or “antisera.” In distinction to active immunization by injection of antigens, passive immunization signifies protection afforded by the administration of antisera.