Atypical acid‐fast bacilli in pulmonary disease

Serological investigations of atypical acid‐fast bacilli

“…tuberculosis by agglutinin-absorption tests (Wilson, 1925;Wells, 1950), precipitin tests (Seibert, 1930;McCarter, Kanne and Hastings, 1939) and hsmagglutination-and hsmolysininhibition tests (Fisher, 1951 ;Lagercrantz, 1956). Antigenic differences between atypical mycobacteria and tubercle bacilli were demonstrated by Nassau, Schwabacher and Hamilton (1 958) by hamolysin absorption and inhibition tests, by Affronti (1959)) Engbaek, Magnusson and Nielsen (1959), Beck (1960) and Takeya et a1. (1960) by skin sensitivity tests on experimental animals, and by Edwards and Palmer (1958) (1958) who used the Ouchterlony agar gel diffusion method, were unable to separate atypical mycobacteria from tubercle bacilli although they could classify Myco.…”

“…Atypical mycobacteria W.C., S.C., F.D., and P.C. (Beck, 1959), Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. hominis H37Rv, Myco.…”

“…Puri$ed protein derivatives ( P P D ) for sensitisation of red cells. These were prepared by the method described by Beck (1960) from unheated culture filtrates of all the above strains except strain H37Rv. Instead of a PPD preparation of this culture, mammalian PPD Weybridge, which is produced from three human strains of tubercle bacilli (Green, 1946), was used.…”

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PREVIOUS investigations of the skin reactions of sensitised guinea-pigs with extracts of atypical acid-fast bacilli have revealed a certain degree of serological specificity (Affronti, 1959; Engbaek, Magnusson and Nielsen, 1959;Beck, 1960), with, however, evidence of considerable antigenic overlap between them and other mycobacteria. To obtain further information on the antigenic relationship of these bacilli, antisera were prepared against them in rabbits, and their specificity was investigated by absorption and inhibition test techniques, using the hzmolytic modification of the Middlebrook-Dubos test (Middlebrook, 1950).

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