Abstract
The Ouchterlony patterns of fifteen grass pollen extracts (against rabbit antisera to the pollens of Cocksfoot—Dactylis glomerata and Timothy—Phleum pratense) are compared with skin reactivities in allergic subjects of this country and with quantitative assays in terms of a heat labile component of Cocksfoot referred to as antigen A. Problems of standardization in general and of the Noon unit in particular are discussed.
Ten indigenous pollens are shown to give positive skin responses in all the pollen sensitive subjects tested, except in one with a most unusual selective specificity for Timothy alone. All indigenous pollens examined contain substances cross-reacting with antigen A, while the four `foreign' pollens, which give small or no skin responses, do not share the A-group specificity. Nevertheless A-content cannot be equated with skin reactivity. British pollens have numerous antigenic determinants in common other than the A-group specificity, although the occurrence of completely identical antigens in different pollens is unlikely.
Complications in the interpretation of Ouchterlony patterns of related natural products are discussed from a purely serological point of view with the help of azoprotein models. Evidence is presented for the occurrence of what may be called bi-specific antibodies. It is suggested that antibodies specific purely for small haptenic groups such as arsanilic acid are probably never produced.
From gel diffusion tests on numerous bleedings from rabbits it seems that prolonged immunization does not lead to the formation of less specific sera as is usually suggested. On the contrary, more and more precisely fitting antibodies appear to be produced to an ever-increasing number of related antigens and minor impurities, probably to more determinants on one and the same molecule or even to new permutations of adjacent determinants on the same molecule.
The need is stressed for more precise definitions of the terms bi-specific antibody and major and minor antigens.
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