Abstract
Summary
A simple method has been described which allows firm coupling of a variety of proteins to tanned sheep erythro-cytes in the presence of formalin. Cells, so treated, agglutinate strongly and specifically with antibody; they also form suitable settling patterns and maintain specific reactivity and sensitivity for a full 2 weeks. Agglutination with immune rabbit sera with as little as 0.04 jug of antibody protein per ml serum was readily detected. The tannic acid-formaldehyde (TAF) test compared favorably with 2 other established hemagglutination procedures for detecting rheumatoid factor in 10 sera from patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
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