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The Complementary Activity of Mouse-Serum

From the Department of Immunology, Laboratories of Immunology and Filterable Viruses, School of Hygiene and Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Abstract

The serum of the mouse differs from that of most animals in that it is without complementary activity. Its serum fails to hemolyze sensitized sheep-cells. Ritz in 1911 (1) observed that mouse-serum contains one component of complement called the midpiece but that the endpiece is missing. This phenomenon is analogous to that given by the fresh serum from a strain of complement-deficient guinea-pigs first reported by Moore (2). A thorough study of this serum by Coca (3), Ecker (4) and Hyde (5, 6) has shown that it is activated in a hemolytic system by very small amounts of heated serum from man or the normal guinea-pig. Thus, the midpiece and endpiece of complement are normally present in this serum but the third complement-component, the heat-resistant or yeast-absorbed component, is missing.

The separation by various methods of guinea-pig complement into several components has been described by Leifmann (7, 8), Browning and Mackie (9) and Whitehead, Gordon, and Wormall (10, 11).

Footnotes

¹ The author wishes to thank Professor Roscoe R. Hyde for his never failing interest throughout the course of the study.