Contamination of Con A Preparations

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Abstract
Brunson's and Watson's paper (J. Immunol. 1975, 115:599) about contamination of Con A preparations with bacterial endotoxins overlooks our personal experience with the same problem (Fumarola et al., Giorn.Batt. Virol. Immun. 1974, 67:289; Progr. Medico, 1975, 31:903). We have found that phytohemagglutinin, pokeweed mitogen, concanavalin A, anti-lymphocyte serum, and transfer factor gave strong positive reactions in the Limulus assay. The concentrations of endotoxin often present in these preparations are high enough to influence immunologic reactions of lymphocytes. However, in studies of this sort it is most important to quantify the level of apparent contamination of reagents so that one can compare these levels with known levels of endotoxin in similar experimental models. In this way one can be sure of the significance of one's findings. Using serial dilution of some samples we detected an amount of endotoxin ranging between 1 and 5 µg/ml.

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