Consumption of Hamster Complement by Bacterial Endotoxin

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Abstract
While studying the interaction of normal hamster serum incubated with endotoxin (LPS) to form a substance capable of releasing histamine from mast cells, it was observed that a concomitant loss of total hemolytic complement (C) activity occurred (1). Gewurz et al. have studied reaction mixtures containing guinea pig serum incubated with LPS and found that there was a preferential consumption of the terminal C components C3 through C9 (2). In contrast, we have found that LPS incubated in normal hamster serum under similar conditions caused a marked consumption of C1, C4 and C2 in addition to classical C EDTA (C3–C9). Accordingly, experiments were performed to compare C consumption by LPS with hamster and guinea pig serum under varying experimental conditions. Blood was collected from female golden hamsters 5 to 10 weeks of age obtained from the Animal Production Unit, National Institutes of Health.

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