Serum Mediated Killing of Three Group D Salmonellas

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Abstract
SUMMARY: Salmonella enteritidis, S. pullorum and S. gallinarum were found to be sensitive to complement-mediated killing by fresh normal human serum but far less so to sera of the mouse, rat or rabbit. S. pullorum but not S. gallinarum was sensitive to the microbicidal activity of adult fowl serum. S. enteritidis was slightly sensitive to the latter serum. Day-old-chick serum was unable to kill either S. gallinarum or S. pullorum even when undiluted serum was used. When human serum was absorbed at 4° by dense suspensions of dead organisms it was found that all antimicrobial activity against the three organisms was absorbed only when the homologous organism was used as the absorbing strain. This suggests that minor somatic antigenic differences occur between the three related organisms. S. pullorum was extremely sensitive to the action of monospecific rabbit antisera. However, serum concentrations which were highly effective against S. pullorum were less effective for S. enteritidis. Even highly microbicidal serum concentrations were unable to kill 100% of the S. enteritidis within the time period of the test. The relevance of these findings to the known differences in the virulence of these three salmonellas for the mouse and the chicken is discussed.

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