The specificity of serological reactions / by Karl Landsteiner.

  • Landsteiner, Karl, 1868-1943.
Date:
[1936], ©1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    tals, which is contrary to experience. A much simpler explana- tion is provided by the principle established through inves- tigations on azoproteins (p. ioo), namely, that the action of antibodies extends to substances that are chemically similar to the homologous antigen. Then the serological cross reactions of the proteins of related animals are a natural consequence of similar chemical structure, just like the group reactions of re- lated proteins observed by Wells and Osborne (p. 19). Indeed, more recent investigations have revealed that pro- teins which were formerly believed to be homogeneous can be separated into diverse fractions (p. 34) but one can anticipate that in such cases the single fractions will prove to be species specific, like albumins and globulins of a serum. The general idea that proteins represent complex mixtures was advanced by Sorensen62 who states from his experimental results that pro- teins in biological fluids “. . . must be regarded as mixtures of larger and smaller complexes (Komponentensysteme) in a state of equilibrium depending upon the environmental conditions, and that this equilibrium is shifted reversibly and readily through changes in the composition of the solution,” (author’s translation). According to Sorensen, proteins isolated by the customary method—for instance serum globulin—are not iden- tical with those originally present, but are loose combinations formed in a different manner from the constituent parts [v. Svedberg (189), (322)]. Supposing this view to be correct, one must conclude that the specificity of proteins is an attribute of the units, that is, the smallest components which cannot reversibly be split. Otherwise, by means of rather gentle opera- tions, such as salting out of proteins, it should be possible to produce or destroy serological characteristics, or by mixing dif- ferent proteins to create new specifically reacting “component systems,” which, however, is not the case. A similar comment was made by Hooker and Boyd (116). On injecting a previously heated mixture of horse and pig serum Zoet (189a) obtained antisera reacting markedly with this solution and scarcely with a mixture of the two sera heated separately. The most probable ex- 62 (187), cf. Bergmann (188).