The Nature of the Virus Receptors of Red Cells

Evidence has been offered that influenza virus which has been heated at 56 degrees C. for 30 or more minutes loses some of its capacity to agglutinate red cells and may completely lose its power to elute from cells on which it has been adsorbed. Such heat-inactivated virus does not possess the capacity to destroy the virus inhibitor in normal rabbit serum and this appears to be the explanation of the higher agglutinin inhibitory levels obtained with serum and heated virus as compared with serum and untreated virus. The heat-inactivated virus can be used to measure the inhibitor substance in normal rabbit serum. By two different methods it has been demonstrated that the inhibitor is destroyed in the presence of unheated influenza virus, as measured by inhibition titrations with virus inactivated at 56 degrees C. The destruction of inhibitor by virus of either type A or B can be measured by virus of either type with similar results.