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Is the Sensitizing Effect of Cholesterol for the Antigen Used in the Complement-Fixation Test for Syphilis Due to the Contaminating Sterol, Ergosterol?

From the Division of Laboratories and Research, New York State Department of Health, Albany

Abstract

Cholesterol which is widely used to increase the sensitivity of antigens employed in the complement-fixation test for syphilis was for many years considered to be a chemically pure substance. Through the studies made recently, however, of cholesterol as a source of vitamin D, the antirachitic vitamin, it is now known that cholesterol, as ordinarily prepared, contains another sterol of an unsaturated and labile type of which ergosterol is the only known representative. Furthermore, it is because of this small amount of contaminating sterol that cholesterol, following irradiation with ultra-violet light, acquires antirachitic properties (1, 2, 3, 4). When ergosterol is removed, cholesterol is inert after irradiation (1, 2, 5, 6). Ergosterol, on the contrary, is very highly active.

In view of these observations, Professor Knudson of the Albany Medical College suggested that it would be of interest to determine whether cholesterol, after removal of the contaminating sterol, would lose its property of sensitizing the antigen used in the complement-fixation test for syphilis just as it loses its property of being rendered antirachitic by irradiation with ultraviolet light.