Abstract
Immune serum against the cells in a tissue culture inhibits their growth completely without necessarily killing them, whereas immune sera against the culture medium, plasma and embryonal extract have no influence on the growth of the cells (Lambert and Haines, 1 Hadda and Rosenthal, 2 Kimura, 3-4 Craciun and Sorescu 5 ). These findings open a new way for investigation into certain biological aspects of the cell that would be accessible by other means only with difficulty.
On immunization with such a complicated structure as a living cell we have to assume that several different antibodies are formed against the different chemical structures. The conditions become even more complicated when we are working not with a pure cellular material but with some crushed tissue containing not only various kinds of cells, but also connective-tissue elements, blood, supporting tissue of various kinds, etc. So the fact that an immune serum, for instance, against minced embryonal material inhibits the growth of homologous fibroblasts in vitro gives no exact information about the components taking an active part in the process.
Then the question is: What components of the cells are so vitally important that their blocking by antibodies is incompatible with the growth and proliferation of the cell? Or, in other words: What cellular antigens produce the growth-inhibiting antibodies?
Studies on the properties of the antibody, on the other hand, appear to be of no particular interest. A priori it is not reasonable to expect that its nature would differ essentially from that of other know antibodies.
In searching for the active antigens, two procedures are available. One is to treat a fairly large amount of cellular material (e. g., minced embryonal material, “brei”) in various ways and then use the purified product for immunization.
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