| Popis: |
Some 50 years ago Landsteiner showed the feasibility of the carrier method for eliciting hapten-specific antibodies in suitable hosts. Since then numerous investigators have successfully applied this methodology to obtain antibodies against a vast number of different haptens (Landsteiner, 1945). In every instance, until recently, the haptens were conjugated to the carrier by covalent bonds, and with but one exception the haptens were small molecules. Goebel and Avery (1931) reported that a pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide, which is not immunogenic in rabbits when injected in chemically pure form, became immunogenic once it was conjugated chemically to a carrier protein. Plescia et al. (1964) first showed that a carrier need not be conjugated chemically to a hapten, that a carrier need only form a stable complex with the hapten. Methylated bovine serum albumin (MBSA), complexed electrostatically with denatured DNA or type III pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide, proved to be an effective carrier. Rabbits, immunized with these complexes, produced DNA and polysaccharide-specific antibodies. |
