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The Journal of Immunology, 1940, 39: 297-305.
Copyright © 1940 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.
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Studies on the Detectability of Pneumococcal Capsular Polysaccharide in Urine: Influence of Variations in pH1

Paul F. de Gara2 and Samuel C. Bukantz3

From the Pneumonia Service (in charge of Jesse G. M. Bullowa, M.D.) of the Medical Division, Harlem Hospital, Department of Hospitals, New York City, and the Littauer Pneumonia Research Fund of New York University, College of Medicine

Abstract

The influence of pH upon the detectability of pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide in normal urine was determined for types I, II, III, IV, V, VII, VIII, and XIV. Solutions of polysaccharide of these types, ranging in concentrations from 1:25,000 to 1:1,600,000 were made in three aliquots of freshly voided urine, adjusted respectively to a pH of circa 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0. Employing the same solutions of antibody for precipitation, it was found that increasing alkalinity, in all experiments, permitted the detection of lower concentrations of pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide in urine. Studies on the urine of a patient convalescing from a pneumococcus-III pneumonia confirmed the experimental observations. Accordingly, it seems advisable to adjust voided acid urines of pneumonia patients to a pH between 7.0 and 8.0 before performing the precipitative test for the detection of capsular polysaccharide.

Footnotes

1 This study received additional financial support from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and from Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, Mr. Bernard M. Baruch Jr., Miss Belle N. Baruch, and Mrs. H. Robert Samstag.

2 Instructor in Bacteriology, New York University, College of Medicine.-Dazian Fellow.

3 Littauer Pneumonia Research Fellow.






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