Skip to main content
The Journal of Experimental Medicine logoLink to The Journal of Experimental Medicine
. 1928 Nov 30;48(6):769–790. doi: 10.1084/jem.48.6.769

ANTIGENIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MATT HEMOLYTIC STREPTOCOCCI AND THEIR GLOSSY VARIANTS

R C Lancefield 1, E W Todd 1
PMCID: PMC2131507  PMID: 19869520

Abstract

The matt and the glossy forms of four strains of hemolytic streptococci were used to immunize rabbits. Precipitin tests showed that rabbit sera prepared against matt organisms, whether virulent or avirulent for mice, contained type-specific antibody while sera prepared against completely degraded glossy organisms contained no type-specific antibody. Type-specific antibody was removed from the sera by absorption with homologous matt organisms but was unaffected by absorption with homologous glossy organisms. Passive protection experiments on mice showed that anti-matt sera were protective and anti-glossy sera non-protective against infection with homologous virulent organisms. Vaccination of mice with matt organisms rendered them immune to subsequent infection with homologous virulent cultures; but vaccination with glossy organisms established no active immunity.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (924.8 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Andrewes C. H., Derick C. L., Swift H. F. A STUDY OF HEMOLYTIC STREPTOCOCCI IN ACUTE RHEUMATIC FEVER, WITH AN ANALYSIS OF THE ANTIGENIC RELATIONSHIPS EXISTING AMONG CERTAIN STRAINS. J Exp Med. 1926 Jan 1;43(1):13–29. doi: 10.1084/jem.43.1.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Todd E. W., Lancefield R. C. VARIANTS OF HEMOLYTIC STREPTOCOCCI; THEIR RELATION TO TYPE-SPECIFIC SUBSTANCE, VIRULENCE, AND TOXIN. J Exp Med. 1928 Nov 30;48(6):751–767. doi: 10.1084/jem.48.6.751. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Journal of Experimental Medicine are provided here courtesy of The Rockefeller University Press

RESOURCES