Effect of lysozyme on the release of erythrocyte-modifying antigen from staphylococci and Micrococcus lysodeikticus.

Rantz and associates (1952, 1956) discovered an unusual antigen which is present in many species of gram-positive and absent in gramnegative bacteria, and referred to it as "nonspecies specific (NSS) antigen." This antigen becomes readily attached to erythrocytes and thus renders the latter specifically agglutinable by antibodies directed against it. Sheep red blood cells modified by Rantz antigen2 are lysed in the presence of antibody and complement. A similar or identical antigen common to staphylococcus and streptococcus was studied by means of hemagglutination or latex agglutination tests by Pakula and Walczak (1955), as well as by Znamirowski et al. (1959). Two modifications of the basic hemagglutination test were described recently, namely, the enzyme hemagglutination and Coombs hemagglutination procedures (Neter et al., 1959; Neter and Gorzynski, 1959). In the former method, erythrocytes are treated with one of several proteolytic enzymes (trypsin, pancreatic protease, ficin, or papain), either before or after modification with antigen of the Rantz type, and then tested with antibodies. In the latter method, hemagglutination is carried out with antigen-modified human erythrocytes and human serum or y-globulin containing Rantz antibodies, followed by the addition of human y-globulin (Coombs) antiserum. It was shown that these two procedures are considerably more sensitive than the basic hemagglutination method for the demonstration of antibodies of the Rantz type in human y-globulin. Supernatants of cultures grown on brain veal agar were employed