The immune response of nine inbred and one outbred strain of mice to the streptococcal group A polysaccharide was investigated with respect to magnitude and restriction. Analytical isoelectric focusing served as a tool to estimate the degree of restriction of Group A polysaccharide-specific antibodies. It proved feasible to distinguish low and intermediate from high responder strains, and to de...

Although Chlamydia pneumoniae is an important human pathogen, the antigens eliciting a specific humoral immune response remain elusive. We scrutinized several recombinant chlamydial surface proteins for species-specific recognition by a panel of human sera previously tested for the presence of anti-C. pneumoniae and anti-C. trachomatis antibodies by microimmunofluorescence and enzyme-linked imm...

Opportunistic infections, due to disease-related immunosuppression, constitute the major cause of death in American visceral leishmaniasis (AVL). Sera from these patients (AVL sera) non-specifically inhibit the in vitro proliferative response of normal human lymphocytes to lectins or antigens. In the present work, the mediation of this inhibition by IgG, immune complexes and low- or very low-de...

Autogenous immune sera from several strains of mice have been examined for type-, group-, or interspecies-specific reactivities against leukemia virus envelope antigens and virus-induced cell surface proteins. The natural antibody of these test sera react with gp69/71, gp43, and p15 structural components on murine leukemia viruses including AKR, Friend, Rauscher, Moloney, and xenotropic BALB:vi...

Autogenous immune sera from several strains of mice have been examined for type-, group-, or interspecies-specific reactivities against leukemia virus envelope antigens and virus-induced cell surface proteins. The natural antibody of these test sera react with gp69/71, gp43, and p15 structural components on murine leukemia viruses including AKR, Friend, Rauscher, Moloney, and xenotropic BALB:vi...

BACKGROUND Vero cell culture-derived whole-virus H5N1 vaccines have been extensively tested in clinical trials and consistently demonstrated to be safe and immunogenic; however, clinical efficacy is difficult to evaluate in the absence of wide-spread human disease. A lethal mouse model has been utilized which allows investigation of the protective efficacy of active vaccination or passive trans...

The ability of rheumatoid sera to support concanavalin-A transformation of normal lymphocytes was inversely related to serum C1q binding activity. When C1q binding activity of the sera was removed by absorption with staphylococcal protein A, subsequent lymphocyte response increased to the level found in immune-complex negative sera. Gel filtration of a small number of sera suggested that the su...

A total of 258 human sera positive for measles antibodies were divided into four different groups: group 1 contained 54 sera from children after natural measles infection (immunoglobulin M [IgM] positive, early infection phase), group 2 contained 28 sera from children after measles vaccination (IgM positive, early infection phase), group 3 contained 100 sera from healthy adults (natural long-la...

Sera from 517 patients with various types of malignancies were assayed for immune complexes (ICs) by the Raji cell radioimmune assay. The incidence of immune complexes in these patients ranged from 16 to 52% as compared to 19% in normal controls. Increases in tumor mass and metastatic disease were associated with high levels of circulating ICs. Immunization of melanoma patients with BCG and tum...