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A Note on the Bacteriophage with Respect to Complement Fixation Tests

From the Department of Animal Pathology, of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, New Jersey

Abstract

While bacteriophagy is a demonstrable fact, conflicting evidence appears to indicate that the real nature of the substance capable of bringing about rapid bacterial lysis is still unsettled. Transmissibility in series of the bacteriophage is interpreted by d'Herelle (1) as reproduction, and therefore indicative of a living organism. To demonstrate further its antigenic properties, and to show likewise that all phages are in reality the same, he employed the complement fixation test, the results of which may be briefly stated as follows:

Sera from rabbits immunized with lysed cultures of different bacterial types fixed complement not only with their homologous antigens but with the others as well. To put it differently, a lysed bacterial culture in reality contains two antigens, soluble bacterial protein and bacteriophage, to each of which the rabbits respond with the production of a specific antibody. Since all sera give heterologous fixation, and as the one common antigenic substance is bacteriophage, then all phages are the same.