Studies on Organ Specificity

[摘要] 1. 1. The sera of rabbits immunized with pooled rabbit pancreas incorporated into Freund adjuvants contain antibodies that react with certain other rabbit pancreas extracts. They fail to react in vitro with the antibody-producing animal's own pancreas extract. No gross or microscopic evidence of damage to the pancreas was observed. The antibodies were therefore designated isoantibodies rather than auto-antibodies.2. 2. These rabbit pancreas isoantibodies could be demonstrated by complement fixation, precipitation, and passive cutaneous anaphylaxis.3. 3. The isoantibodies of the sera could be removed by absorption with some individual pancreas extracts but not with others.4. 4. Absorption of the anti-rabbit pancreas rabbit sera with rabbit serum, erythrocytes, gastrointestinal and urogenital tract mucosae or other rabbit organs did not remove the rabbit pancreas isoantibodies. This finding was true even if the absorptions were carried out with organs from a rabbit whose pancreas extract provided a positive reaction.5. 5. Absorption of these antisera with human A, B or O red blood cells or sheep red blood cells did not inhibit the homologous reaction with rabbit pancreas extract.6. 6. The existence of at least three different rabbit pancreas isoantigens could be shown by gel diffusion precipitation experiments within the heterogenous strain of rabbits used in the study. Similar pancreas isoantigens have not been found so far in other experimental animals such as guinea pigs or dogs, even though these species contain the pancreas-specific antigens demonstrable by heteroimmunization of rabbits.7. 7. The anti-rabbit pancreas rabbit sera did not cross-react with pancreas extracts of other species.8. 8. “Natural antibodies” of the type described by Kidd and Friedewald could be domonstrated in these antisera both before and after immunization with rabbit pancreas extract, although an occasional increase in titer was observed during immunization. These antibodies could be differentiated from the pancreas isoantibodies by specific absorption and heat inactivation properties as well as by gel precipitation.9. 9. The electrophoretic mobilities of the rabbit pancreas isoantigens were compared to that of human serum albumin in agar gel with the following results: one isoantigen had an electrophoretic mobility slightly greater than albumin, one isoantigen had an electrophoretic mobility similar to that of albumin, whereas the other had a lower electrophoretic mobility than human serum albumin.10. 10. Immunoelectrophoresis studies showed the rabbit pancreas isoantibodies to be in the γ-globulin region.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）