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Studies on the Mechanisms of Hypersensitivity Phenomena

XI. The Effect of Normal Human Serum on the Release of Histamine from Human Leukocytes by Ragweed Pollen Antigen

From the Department of Microbiology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

Normal human serum can enhance the rate and extent of immune histamine release from ragweed-sensitive leukocytes under specified experimental conditions. The quantitative expression of this potentiation is governed largely by the amount of antigen in the reaction system, being most marked when the release process is limited in this respect. The enhancing effect diminishes with higher antigen levels, becoming entirely inapparent with amounts of antigen which suffice for a maximal response.

The potentiating activity of serum is retained after heating at 56°C and treatment with ammonium hydroxide. Serum so treated is shown to be markedly depleted with respect to C'1, C'4, and over-all complement activity. Moreover, this depletion was not offset by a contribution of C'1 from the leukocytes.

Two inhibitors of complement activity, diisopropylfluorophosphate and salicylaldoxime, rendered the leukocytes incapable of a response to antigen. Since the inhibition was manifest even after the cells were washed and resuspended in optimal buffer, it cannot be decided whether these compounds act to derange homeostasis in the leukocyte or to suppress a reaction step specific to the histamine release process.

Footnotes

¹ Fellow, United States Public Health Service Graduate Training Grant No. 5 TI GM 624 to the Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, from the National Institutes of Health.

² Support for this investigation has been available, in part, from the National Science Foundation, Grant No. G-6205; The American Cancer Society, Inc., Grant No. T-257A; The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the U. S. Public Health Service, Grant No. AI-03151; and from the Office of The Surgeon General, Department of the Army, under the auspices of the Commission on Immunization of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, Contract No. DA-49-193-MD-2468.

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