Summary
Injection of rabbits with whole homogenates of heterologous heart from beef or rat, incorporated in aluminum hydoxide gel adjuvant, induced antibodies strongly reactive with saline extracts of normal rabbit heart by precipitation and complement-fixation tests. These antisera were not reactive in precipitation tests with extracts of other rabbit organs except for occasional weak reactions with skeletal muscle. Absorption tests with skeletal muscle indicated antigenic activity specific only for heart tissue. In two-dimensional complement-fixation tests with antisera to heterologous heart, rabbit heart extract showed far higher titers of reactive antigen than extracts of other rabbit organs. This heart-related antigenic material was sedimentable at high speed (56,500 × G) as determined by both precipitation and complement-fixation, and its cellular localization was correlated, as determined by immunofluorescent staining, with material in myocardial cells distributed between myofibrils. These observations are consistent with origin of the above antigen or antigens from sarcoplasmic reticulin or mitochondria.
Separate heterogenetic organ-related antigenic activity of rabbit skeletal muscle was demonstrated with rabbit antisera to heterologous skeletal muscle from beef or rat by precipitation tests. Complement fixation tests were inconclusive. This skeletal muscle antigen was not sedimented following centrifugation at 56,500 × G and could not be localized with certainty in tissue sections, presumably because of its solubility.
Footnotes
- Received June 21, 1961.
- Copyright, 1962, by The Williams & Wilkins Company
- Copyright © 1962 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.
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