Abstract
IN 1938, Levine and Katzin1 described a phenomenon in which the red blood cells of a patient suffering from a severe infection with pneumococcus Type 1 were agglutinated by the sera of about 15 per cent of normal persons. The agglutination occurred at room and lower temperatures but not at 37°C. The authors considered that a latent agglutinogen in the cells was activated by some unidentified mechanism and that this agglutinogen was rendered susceptible to the action of agglutinins which were normally present in the sera. This property of the red cells lasted only for four months. Gaffney and Sachs2 have described a similar occurrence in two subjects. The first, a boy aged 11 years, had been treated for congenital syphilis for four years. His red cells were agglutinated at room temperature but not at 37°C. Of the sera used the percentage which produced agglutination varied at different times, 89 per cent being the highest. The second was a healthy woman student whose cells were agglutinated at room temperature by 73 per cent of the sera against which they were tested. The poly-agglutinability, as the authors term the phenomenon, disappeared in both patients after some months.
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References
Levine, P., and Katzin, E. M., Proc. Soc. Ezp. Biol. and Med., 39, 167 (1938).
Gaffney, J. C., and Sachs, H., J. Path, and Bact., 55, 489 (1943).
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BASIL-JONES, B., SANGER, R. & WALSH, R. An Agglutinable Factor in Red Blood Cells. Nature 157, 802 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157802b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157802b0
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