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Inhibition of Complement-Mediated Lysis of Sheep Erythrocytes by Cell-Free Preparations from Streptococcus Mutans BHT^{1 ,2 ,3 ,4}

From the Department of Microbiology & Cell Science, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611⁵

Abstract

A cell-free extract from the spent medium of Streptococcus mutans BHT was tested for anti-complementary activity with sheep erythrocytes (E) as target cells. It was determined that this extract was enriched for extracellular lipoteichoic acid (LTA) and that the LTA bound to the surfaces of sheep E. Furthermore, sheep E, sheep E plus antibodies (EA), and sheep cells in the intermediate stage of complement (C) component fixation EAC1 became refractory to C-mediated lysis after treatment with the LTA-rich extract. Sheep E in the intermediate states
and
were unaffected despite the fact that LTA could be detected on the surfaces of these cells with the passive hemagglutination procedure. Preliminary results showed that the C inhibitory activity co-purified with LTA, and LTA (both crude and purified) from other bacteria were anticomplementary. Both crude extracellular material from S. mutans BHT and partially purified extracellular LTA from the same bacteria caused consumption of whole human C activity.

Footnotes

¹ Authorized for publication as paper No. 855 in the Journal Series of the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station.

² Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, May 1976.

³ The nomenclature of complement used in this paper conforms to that proposed at a series of World Health Organization meetings (Immunochemistry 7:137, 1970).

⁴ This work was supported by funds provided by the Cooperative State Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, Project No. FLA-BC-01751, and by Grant IN62-P from the American Cancer Society.

⁵ Address to which requests for reprints should be mailed.

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