Abstract
Applying the plasma-clot technic, Tillett and Garner 1 demonstrated fibrinolytic enzymes in broth cultures of streptococci and staphylococci. All other bacterial species tested by them were fibrinolytically negative.
A negative reaction with the plasma-clot technic, however, is not conclusive evidence of the absence of a fibrinolytic factor. Many plasma-clots are known to contain neutralizing antibodies. We have, therefore, tested all locally available bacterial species (231 strains) by the serum-free fibrin-clot technic.
In addition to certain pyogenic cocci, all locally available strains of B. pestis are strongly fibrinolytic, particularly when tested with rat- or guinea pig-fibrin. Fibrinolytic tests with the 16 available bubonic plague cultures are recorded in Tables I and II.
Strain 1 in Tables I and II is a 20-year-old stock culture of B. pestis originally isolated from a human case. Strains 2–16 have been isolated during the last 12 months from field mice and ground squirrels. These 15 strains were kindly furnished for our work by Dr. Karl F. Meyer, Hooper Foundation, University of California.
Table II shows that the fibrinolytic factors formed or secreted by the 15 rodent strains are relatively specific (or of relatively high titer) for rat-fibrin. The one available human strain, however, yields lytic factors of relatively high titer for ground squirrel and human fibrins.
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