The specificity of serological reactions / [Karl Landsteiner].

  • Landsteiner, Karl, 1868-1943
Date:
1936
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Licence: In copyright

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

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    haviour, such a condition does not obtain regularly. An example is furnished by the carbohydrates of salmonella bacilli which in spite of their serological disparity resemble each other in op- tical rotation, and the amount of sugar liberated by hydrolytic cleavage. The observations on salmonella bacilli are open to the criticism that the substances were not highly purified and not studied sufficiently; this objection does not apply, however, to the carbohydrates of the types B and C of B. Friedlander which, differences in solubility excepted, are chemically very similar but entirely different in their immunological reactions. Goebel and Avery (96) are inclined to ascribe the serological dissimilar- ity of the two substances to a different type of linkage between sugars and sugar acids. In contrast to the immunological differences of quite similar substances stand the heterogenetic reactions of chemically dis- tinct polysaccharides which doubtless depend on the occurrence of identical or similar groupings in divers polysaccharides (p. 59.) Instances to be included in this category, in addition to others enumerated before,18 are the following reactions: gum arabic with immune sera for Pneumococcus II and III (97), type II pneumococcus carbohydrate with immune sera for a strain of B. lepisepticus (60), acetylated polysaccharides of Pneumococcus I with antibodies against human A blood (p. 162), the species polysaccharides of gonococci and meningococci with anti-pneumococcus serum type III (57) and the relationship be- tween Pneumococcus III and VIII.19 Zozaya’s report (98) on numerous cross reactions of bacterial carbohydrates was ques- tioned (99) on account of the possible interference of antibodies for the agar contained in the culture media (p. 153). One may expect that the study of bacterial polysaccharides will provide information on the apparent mosaic structure of cell antigens.20 The problem, referred to previously (p. 72), con- sists in either isolating several specific carbohydrates from one bacterium or demonstrating several “factors” in individual, well 18 P. 58, see also (60). 19 This is attributed by Goebel (37) to the presence of the same aldo- bionic acid in both type specific polysaccharides. 20 On the fractionation of bacterial proteins see references on p. 18.