Abstract
Summary and Conclusions
The bis-diazotized benzidine (BDB) hemagglutination system has been adapted to the study of the rheumatoid factor and has been demonstrated to provide certain advantages over the tanned sheep cell hemagglutination method in the study of the rheumatoid factor. Euglobulin preparations from 3 rheumatoid arthritis sera have been shown by the BDB hemagglutination method to react with human, rabbit, bovine, equine, porcine and guinea pig gamma globulins; significant reactivity with chicken gamma globulin was not demonstrated. It has been shown that the reactivity with rabbit, bovine and equine gamma globulins is associated with rheumatoid factor activity both by euglobulin precipitation and ultra-centrifugal fractionation. These reactivities with the animal gamma globulins were absorbed from rheumatoid sera by a preparation of insoluble HGG. The reactivities with the animal gamma globulins therefore are felt to represent a part of the rheumatoid factors of these sera. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the rheumatoid factor is antibody to human gamma globulin with cross-reactivity with the gamma globulins of other mammalian species.
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