Studies on immunity to Asiatic cholera. X. Heat stable cell wall and intracellular antigens of Vibrio cholerae independent of agglutinogens and demonstrable by passive hemagglutination.

Abstract

not follow that such superficially located antigens reflect completely the antigenic mosaic of the entire cell. If not, then antigens other than agglutinogens may be present in the cell, and an antigenic structure concerned only with agglutinogens is incomplete. In studies on the mouse protection test for antibody protective against challenge inoculation with Vibrio cholerae (Burrows, Mather, Elliott and Havens, 1947), it was found that an appreciable amount of mouse protective antibody, one-fourth to one-third of the initial titer, was demonstrable by the passive protection test in antiserums homologous to the challenge vibrio strain but exhausted of homologous agglutinins. It was concluded that Protective antibody was associated with antibody to heat stable vibrio antigen, but was not necessarily identical with O agglutinin. Similar results were reported later (Burrows, 1953) when it was shown that an analogous partial protection against enteric infection of the guinea pig with V. cholerae could be obtained by active immunization with O vaccine prepared with a noncholera vibrio strain whose