Abstract
Summary
The antimetabolite, actinomycin D, is capable of enhancing the lethality of bacterial endotoxin in CFW mice over 100,000-fold. This procedure appears to offer a simple, reproducible, and highly sensitive test for the detection and quantitation of submicrogram amounts of bacterial endotoxin. The lethality in CFW mice of tetanus and diphtheria exotoxins was not similarly augmented by the antimetabolite. The procedure was capable of detecting small quantities of circulating endotoxin in rabbit blood 60 min after injection of 1 mg of S. typhosa endotoxin. Some characteristics and possible applications of this test are discussed.
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