Specific staining of various bacteria with a single fluorescent antiglobulin.

Coons and Kaplan (1950) developed a rapid, sensitive, and specific fluorescent antibody technique for staining viruses in tissue sections. They used a direct staining procedure in which a specific fluorescent antibody preparation is applied directly to the cell being studied. In the indirect procedure (Weller and Coons, 1954), the virus is first reacted with a specific nonfluorescent antiserum prepared in the rabbit and then reacted with fluorescent antiglobulin prepared against rabbit globulin. The direct staining procedure was adapted to the staining of bacteria by Moody et al. (1956) who used fluorescein-labeled antiserum to identify individual cells of Malleomyces pseudomallei on glass slides. Fluorescent antibody preparations have been used to identify Hemophilus pertussis (de Repentigny and Frappier, 1956), Malleomyces pseudomallei (Thomason et al., 1956), and Salmonella species (Thomason et al., 1957). This paper is an extension of a preliminary report (Carter and Leise, 1957) and presents the application of the indirect staining techniques to the identification of Brucella suis strain PSIIIK, Pasteuretla tularensis Schu, Vibrio comma strain V8, and Pasteurella pestis strain A1122, using a single fluorescent rabbit antiglobulin. Data pertaining to the application of the direct staining technique to the above organisms are also presented.