Hemolysis of Sheep Erythrocytes Sensitized with Leptospiral Extracts

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Abstract
Leptospiral extracts are capable of sensitizing sheep erythrocytes to the hemolytic action of homologous and heterologous leptospiral antiserum and complement, and description of the hemolytic procedure is presented. The hemolytic procedure was shown to be broadly specific, in sharp contrast to the high degree of type specificity seen in the agglutination-lysis procedure. In comparison with hemolytic titrations, the hemagglutination reaction was also found to have broad specificity but to be considerably less sensitive than the hemolytic reaction. All 3 procedures were compared in a study involving 580 randomly selected human sera, from which data it would seem that the hemolytic procedure warrants further study as a possible screening tool for the rapid detection and titration of leptospiral antibodies in human sera.[long dash]Charles D. Cox.