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Evolution of the Immune Response to Type III and VIII Pneumococcal Polysaccharides¹

From the Cardiac Unit, Medical Services, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract

The variability of the immune response of 30 rabbits to the type III and of 40 rabbits to the type VIII pneumococci was studied. Sixty-seven out of 70 animals produced, at one time or another, antibodies of restricted electrophoretic mobility, but no general pattern could be defined. One animal produced a single antibody species throughout the six months of immunization. The homogeneity of this antibody population was evidenced by a unique amino acid sequence of the N-terminal part of the light chain. Only an interplay of several competing and cooperating mechanisms could account for the very diverse nature of the immune response observed in these experiments.

Footnotes

¹ This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant AI-04967.

² Recipient of a fellowship from the Albert J. Ryan Trust.

³ On leave from the Free University Brussels. Recipient of a long-term E.M.B.O. (European Molecular Biology Organization) fellowship.

⁴ Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr. Edgar Haber, Cardiac Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114.