Abstract
SUMMARY The fate of three freshly isolated strains of N. gonorrhoeae following phagocytosis by human or guinea-pig polymorphs was studied in vitro. Less than 1 per cent. of gonococci phagocytosed by the guinea-pig cells survived at 100 min., but some 20 per cent. of gonococci associated with the human polymorphs were not killed even after 3 hr. The persisting gonococci were destroyed when the polymorphs were exposed to penicillin and this indicates that the surviving bacteria lay outside the polymorph membrane. Cationic proteins prepared by fractional ethanol precipitation of acid extracts of the granules from human and guinea-pig polymorphs rapidly destroyed gonococci in vitro and, presumably, are partly responsible for the ability of polymorphs to kill gonococci. Although these findings require confirmation in studies with gonococci grown in vivo, they strongly suggest that man’s susceptibility to gonorrhoea is not explained simply by the survival of gonococci in polymorphs.
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