Australia antigen in a closed adult population monitored for serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase.

A study of the presence of Australia antigen (Au/SH) was conducted over a period of 21 weeks among volunteer plasma donors living in a prison and being monitored for serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase (SGOT). A good correlation was observed between the level of SGOT and presence of Au/SH, the latter being present in 33% of donors with SGOT values higher than 101 Karmen units and in 12% of those with SGOT values of 41 to 100 units. Furthermore, none of the 87 donors with all SGOT values below 40 was found positive for Au/SH. It should be noted, however, that single specimens only were tested from 72 of the 87 individuals. Au/SH was detected with equivalent efficiency by both agar gel precipitation and complement fixation procedures. Implications of these findings in the prognostication of hepatitis carrier state are discussed.

Preparation and standardization of an Australia antigen antibody of equine origin.

A horse has been immunized with Australia antigen (Au/SH) purified 20-fold by a procedure employing gel filtration of Cohn fraction IV derived from an Au/SH-positive human plasma pool. Hyperimmunization was initiated by the intramuscular injection of 20 ml of a mixture of equal parts of purified Au/SH and complete Freund's adjuvant. The 20-ml volume was divided into four 5-ml doses, two of which were administered on each side of the horse's neck. Booster doses of antigen alone were given as follows: 10 ml intravenously 30 days later and 5 ml intramuscularly on each of days 77 and 205. Au/SH antibody formed readily, beginning on day 17, and was demonstrated by the agar gel double-diffusion technique and the complement fixation test during the subsequent 6 months. Antihuman plasma protein antibodies were effectively removed from the horse serum by one absorption with 1 to 3 volumes of normal human plasma. Abrupt rises in anticomplementary activity observed shortly after the third and fourth antigen injections, when the horse had developed elevated and steady levels of Au/SH antibody, could possibly be due to formation of antigen-antibody complexes. After optimal conditions were determined, an Au/SH antibody reagent pool which met official requirements was prepared. It was found equally suitable for the agar gel double-diffusion, complement fixation, and counterimmunoelectrophoresis test procedures.

Loss of rubella antibody from immune globulin treated with kaolin.

Sera and immune globulin (IG) preparations are customarily treated with kaolin before titration of their rubella hemagglutination-inhibiting (HI) antibody in order to rid them of nonspecific inhibitors of hemagglutination. The treatment was shown in this investigation to have no adverse effect on the antibody level of the sera but was found to remove considerable amounts of gamma-globulin from IG preparations. Evidence of this removal was obtained by serological tests, by spectrophotometric determination of protein concentration and by disc electrophoresis. In contrast to kaolin, heparin-manganese chloride (MnCl(2)) treatment of IG preparations had essentially no effect on the level of antibody globulin by all the criteria used. Heparin-MnCl(2)-treated IG lots were in these respects similar, if not identical, to their untreated counterparts. Since nonspecific inhibitors associated with the beta-lipoprotein fraction of serum are removed by the method employed to fractionate the IG samples, it seems unnecessary to treat the latter in any way for the HI test. No difficulty was encountered in this investigation with several untreated IG lots.