SERUM INHIBITION OF STREPTOCOCCAL DIPHOSPHOPYRIDINE NUCLEOTIDASE IN UNCOMPLICATED STREPTOCOCCAL PHARYNGITIS AND IN RHEUMATIC FEVER *

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Serum antistreptococcal diphosphropyridine nucleotidase activity (ASDA) was studied in patients with rheumatic fever and in those with uncomplicated streptococcal pharyngitis, and was compared with the behavior of antibodies to other known streptococcal extracellular enzymes. Serum ASDA showed characteristic properties of a serum antibody: it was relatively heat stable, associated with globulins and species specific in its inhibition. ASDA behaved in closely parallel fashion to other streptococcal antibodies tested in human sera. Increased ASDA was found approximately as frequently as increased antistreptolysin O and somewhat more frequently than increased antihyaluronidase or antistreptokinase titers. Like the other streptococcal antibodies studied, mean ASDA titers were somewhat higher in acute rheumatic fever patients'' sera than in the sera of patients with uncomplicated streptococcal infection. After prolonged freedom from streptococcal infection, ASDA titers were uniformly low in rheumatic subjects. There was, therefore, no evidence of atypical behavior of ASDA in rheumatic fever compared with other streptococcal antibodies. Increases in ASDA titers in the sera of patients convalescent -from streptococcal pharyngitis were not always associated with in vitro production of diphosphopyridine nucleotidase by the infecting strain, and vice versa.

This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit: