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On the Kinetics of Neutralization of Bacteriophage T2 by Specific Antiserum¹

Contribution No. 21 from the Department Biophysics, Florence R. Sabin Laboratories, University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver, Colorado

Abstract

1. Activation of inhibited T2 bacteriophage in mixtures of native virus lysates and specific antiserum accounts for most of the anomalies of the kinetics of the virus-neutralizing reaction including its strong temperature dependence. In the absence of the activation phenomenon the neutralization reaction follows a first-order kinetic law in buffered 0.15 M NaCl and has a Q₁₀ of 1.4.

2. The following facts indicate that the activating factor of anti-T2 serum is one or more anti-E. coli bodies directed against the inhibiting substances which cause the masking in inhibited viruses. a) In our antisera the activating factor is present in much lower effective concentrations than the neutralizing antibodies. b) The activating factor is removed from antiserum by absorption with native T2 lysates, T1 lysates and sonically disrupted E. coli. c) The activating factor is not absorbed from antiserum by activated T2 lysates and intact cells.

3. Antiserum directed against sonically disrupted E. coli does not activate inhibited viruses. This indicates that the inhibiting substances are poor antigens, eliciting an immunological response only when attached to virus.

4. The activating factor is destroyed by incubating whole or slightly diluted antiserum at 37°C but not at 56°C. This reaction is inhibited by trypsin inhibitors.

5. Jerne's finding that the rate of virus neutralization by specific antiserum is considerably faster at low than at high salt concentrations is confirmed.

6. The rate of neutralization at low salt concentrations depends on the length of time diluted antiserum is incubated at 0°C at these salt concentrations before addition of virus. At least two competing, relatively slow processes occur on incubation of the serum; one resulting in an increase and the other in a decrease in the potency of the serum. The process or processes which increase the potency proceed at much greater rates than the competing ones and are reversed on raising the salt concentration.

Footnotes

¹ This investigation was supported in part by a research grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service; and in part by a departmental research grant from the Division of Biology and Medicine, Atomic Energy Commission, Contract No. AT-(11-1)-269.