A Note on the Use of the Antigen Excess Zone to Reveal the Existence of Certain Types of Cross Reactions in Unidentified Mixtures of Antigens

[摘要] Most single protein-antiprotein reactions are characterized by the marked solubility of the antigen-antibody complex in excess antigen (1) and the quantitative precipitin curves describing such a reaction decrease rapidly to zero in this region. There are a number of situations, however, in which the precipitation of specific complexes persists even far into antigen excess. For example, this situation may prevail when several unrelated systems react simultaneously (2, 3) or when a given antibody reacts with a mixture of homologous and heterologous antigens (4). It is the latter case which will concern us in the present paper.[3][1]The reaction under consideration involves the β galactosidase (Gz) and a structurally similar protein (Pz) found in extracts of Escherichia coli. Active extracts from cells grown in the presence of an inducer, e.g., lactose, β-methyl-galactoside, contain both Gz and Pz while inactive extracts , from cells grown in the absence of an inducer of β-galactosidase contain Pz but not Gz. [1]: #fn-3

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）