THE PRODUCTION OF SPECIFIC RABBIT ANTIBODIES BY INJECTING INDIVIDUAL ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY COMPLEXES SEPARATED FROM MIXED ANTIGENS

Abstract

Injection of a few hundred micrograms of antigen—antibody precipitates of fluorescent ovalbumin, ¹³¹I-labelled human serum albumin, lysozyme, antigen 3 of Pasteurella pestis and myoglobin into rabbits produced a 10–100-fold increase in antibody compared with that injected in the precipitates. Before injection the precipitates had been separated from either ¹³¹I-labelled human serum albumin serological precipitate or fluorescent ovalbumin serological precipitate by the method of Smith, Tozer, Gallop and Scanes (1962b) after the reaction of mixed antigens with mixed antibodies. The antibodies produced by this method precipitated only their homologous antigen from a mixture of it with either ¹³¹I-labelled human serum albumin or fluorescent ovalbumin. If secondary precipitates formed from antibody produced in this way were injected into rabbits in larger quantities, a further 8–35-fold increase in specific antibody was obtained.