Quantitative Studies on the Neutralization of Pathogenic Agents in Tissues by Circulating Antibodies

Abstract

In a previous communication (1) a new method for the determination of the coefficient of the distribution of antibodies between blood and tissue has been described. The method was based on a quantitative comparison of direct and indirect1 cutaneous tests with diphtheric and staphylococcal toxins and antitoxins. By this means, the coefficient of the distribution of antitoxins was found to be in the neighborhood of 22. All these experiments were carried out with horse-serum antitoxins. Recently Heidelberger and Pedersen (2), Goodner, Horsfall, and Bauer (3), and Schaffer and Dingle (4) have found with the methods of ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration and the molecular-film technic of Langmuir, that antibodies in horse serum may have a considerably larger molecular weight and volume than the corresponding antibodies in rabbit serum. Actually this has been demonstrated, thus far, only for types 1 and 3 pneumococcal antibodies, whereas according to Schaffer and Dingle, types 5 and 8 pneumococcal antibodies have the same molecular size in horse and rabbit serum.