A Substance in Animal Parasites Related to the Human Isoagglutinogens

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Abstract
A polysaccharide fraction has been isolated from the following helminths: Ascaris suum, A. lumbricoides, Trichinella spiralis, Necator americanus, Schistosoma mansoni and the larval form of Taenia solium. The polysaccharide fractions seem to have some immunological relationship to the human isoagglutinogens since, when added to human serums, they inhibit the [alpha] and [beta] agglutinins. The polysaccharide fractions also inhibit the hemolysins for sheep cells present in the serums of rabbits infected with Trichinella spiralis and of rabbits which normally possess this antibody. Since the polysaccharide fractions by themselves can incite antibody formation, immunization of the host with these fractions might lead to the formation of agglutinins capable of acting on the erythrocytes of the host. This possibility may be of importance in blackwater fever because in this disease agglutination and hemolysis of erythrocytes may be associated with an autohemagglutinin. The autohemagglutinin may appear as a result of immunization of the host by an isoagglutinogen-like substance in the malarial parasite. The fact that a markedly increased titer of a agglutinins has been found in a group of malaria patients who had repeated attacks of the disease, adds some evidence to the above conception and suggests that the malarial parasite is responsible for the increase in agglutinin titer. How this increase in agglutinin titer resulting from infection, however, may be associated with autoagglutination remains to be seen.