Antibody Patterns in Different Human Sera Against Intracellular and Membrane-Antigen Complexes Associated With Epstein-Barr Virus2

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Abstract
A set of sera and fluorescein-conjugated immunoglobulins derived from them were compared for anti-Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and EBV-associated membrane-antigen reactivity by cross-blocking tests in direct immunofluorescence on fixed and viable cells, respectively. Whereas several sera showed complete cross reactivity by blocking, a number of asymmetries were found in both the membrane and anti-EBV tests, with blocking obtained in only one direction, not reciprocally. Since no experimental support was obtained to indicate that this was caused by quantitative or avidity differences, it was assumed that both the intracellular and the membrane-antigen systems consist of more than one antigenic component. Thus some EBV-positive sera would contain antibodies against a larger number of components than others. For some serum combinations, the cross-blocking patterns obtained in the anti-EBV test correlated well with the corresponding blocking patterns in the membrane test, whereas other serum combinations gave discordant results in the two tests. This can be understood from the previous demonstration that the intracellular and the membrane complexes carry different antigenic specificities, and the added assumption that a serum containing many antibody components against antigenic constituents of one system will also tend to contain many reactive components against the other, though this does not have to occur with absolute regularity. The possibility is discussed that the broadness of immunization is related to the case history, especially to the persistence of a tumor mass.

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