Hemolysis of Sheep Erythrocytes Sensitized with Leptospiral Extracts

Abstract

Summary

Leptospiral extracts are capable of sensitizing sheep erythrocytes to the HL action of homologous and heterologous leptospiral antiserum and complement, and description of the HL procedure is presented. The HL procedure was shown to be broadly specific, in sharp contrast to the high degree of type specificity seen in the AL procedure. In comparison with HL titrations, the HA reaction was also found to have broad specificity but to be considerably less sensitive than the HL reaction. All 3 procedures were compared in a study involving 580 randomly selected human sera, from which data it would seem that the HL procedure warrants further study as a possible screening tool for the rapid detection and titration of leptospiral antibodies in human sera.