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Biomedical subjects

A Adam

Publications and source records attributed to A Adam.

At least 361 records · Page 20Linked to original sources

Preparation and biological properties of water-soluble adjuvant fractions from delipidated cells of Mycobacterium smegmatis and Nocardia opaca.

Digestion by lysozyme of delipidated cells of Mycobacterium smegmatis liberates a water-soluble immunoadjuvant fraction which is chemically very similar to the water-soluble adjuvant (WSA) obtained previously from purified cell walls, but which contains somewhat more non-peptidoglycan amino acids. The yield of peptidoglycan-arabinogalactan complex is about 10 times greater starting from whole cells than from cell walls. The main biological properties of this "neo-WSA" are described: it increases circulating antibodies to ovalbumin in guinea pigs, it does not produce polyarthritis in rats or induce hypersensitivity to tuberculin, it does not increase susceptibility to histamine or hyperreactivity to endotoxin, and does not produce spleen and liver hypertrophy. Analogous immunostimulant fractions have also been obtained from delipidated cells of Nocardia opaca by lysozyme treatment.

Adjuvants, Immunologic↗

Isolation and properties of a macromolecular, water-soluble, immuno-adjuvant fraction from the cell wall of Mycobacterium smegmatis.

Trypsin- and chymotrypsin-treated delipidated cell walls of Mycobacterium smegmatis were digested overnight with lysozyme. The water-soluble products thus obtained were filtered on a column of Sephadex G-50; the first peak, excluded from the column, has immunological adjuvant activity. The material of the excluded peak is obtained after lyophilization as a snow-white, fluffy material, soluble in water and insoluble in organic solvents. It behaves as a slightly polydisperse macromolecule in an ultracentrifuge, with an approximate molecular weight of 20,000. All the constituents of this material are typical bacterial cell-wall constituents; thus, the water-soluble adjuvant is considered to be an "oligomer" of the cell wall. When added to Freund's incomplete adjuvant with an antigen (e.g., ovalbumin) and injected into hind-foot pads of guinea pigs, this water-soluble adjuvant increases the amount of precipitating antibodies and induces hypersensitivity to ovalbumin and the biosynthesis of gamma(2)-type precipitating antibodies. The water-soluble material has a stronger adjuvant activity than equal amounts of whole bacteria, cell walls, or wax D, and seems to be the first well-defined, water-soluble, adjuvant-active fraction isolated from Mycobacteria.

Adjuvants, Immunologic↗