Guinea-pig reaginic antibody. II. Physicochemical and biological properties.

The physicochemical and biological properties of purified guinea-pig reaginic antibody were studied. It is a labile protein different to γ1. Its antibody activity is completely destroyed by heating at 56° for 6 hours and by treatment with mercaptoethanol. The capacity to give PCA is decreased by repeated freezing and thawing. It is a bivalent antibody, haemagglutinating, does not fix complement and is capable of sensitizing guinea-pig skin for PCA reaction after a latent period of a week but not after 3 hours. Reaginic antibody appears on day 7–8 after the first inoculation and the higher levels (PCA reaction) are obtained at the eleventh to thirteenth days. After the fifteenth to seventeenth days the PCA is negative. The reaginic antibody does not pass the placenta. Higher levels of reaginic antibody were obtained when the guinea-pigs were inoculated with the antigen in saline with simultaneous inoculation, intraperitoneally, of killed Bordetella pertussis, phase I.