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. 1960 Nov 30;112(6):1211–1226. doi: 10.1084/jem.112.6.1211

SPECIFIC INHIBITION OF WHEAL-AND-ERYTHEMA RESPONSES WITH UNIVALENT HAPTENS AND UNIVALENT ANTIBODY FRAGMENTS

Fuad S Farah 1, Milton Kern 1, Herman N Eisen 1
PMCID: PMC2137321  PMID: 13698149

Abstract

Wheal-and-erythema responses were studied in normal human volunteers and in a single human subject who is sensitive to the 2,4-dinitrophenyl group. In the normal subjects, reactive skin sites were established by intradermal injection of purified rabbit antibody specific for the 2,4-dinitrophenyl group. In both the active and passively sensitized subjects, wheal-and-erythema was elicited by intradermal injection of a 2,4-dinitrophenyl protein, but not by injection of the same conjugate mixed with certain low molecular weight 2,4-dinitrophenyl haptens or with univalent fragments split by papain from anti-2,4-dinitrophenyl antibody. The latter fragments, unlike intact, bivalent, antibody, do not sensitize normal human skin sites. From these and other observations it is concluded that the wheal-and-erythema response in human skin requires mutually multivalent antigen and antibody. This requirement suggests that multimolecular complexes, containing at least 2 antigen and 2 antibody molecules, are essential in the pathogenesis of this allergic response.

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Selected References

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

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