Abstract
Young actively growing Aspergillus fumisatus cultures were disrupted and found to contain more than 50 antigens which precipitated with a hyperimmune serum. Cell-free mycelial extract was precipitated with a 75% saturated solution of ammonium sulfate. The precipitable portion was fractionated by gel-filtration into four fractions and the soluble portion into two fractions based on affinity for an anion exchange resin. Chemical electrophoretic and immunoelectrophoretic properties of the fractions were examined. Antigenic relatedness of the A. fumigatus extract and fractions were compared to extracts of A. niger and A. flavus by fused rocket immunoelectrophoresis. The extracts were also found to be most useful in detecting antibodies in sera from aspergillosis patients infected with the species homologous to the extract. FB, an ammonium sulfate precipitable fraction separated by gel filtration, was the most skin reactive of the fractions in guinea pigs sensitized for cellular hypersensitivity to A. fumigatus. However, FB was among the least reactive fractions in in vitro tests for lymphocyte transformation. The lowered reactivity in vitro may have been due to an autoinhibitory effect of FB which was found to also inhibit in vitro transformation of lymphocytes by phytohemagglutinin, concanavalin A (Con A), pokeweed mitogen and tuberculin. The inhibitory principle was heat labile and sensitive to trypsin digestion. Washing the cultures at 3 or 24 hours to remove the inhibitor also resulted in loss of the inhibition. By the use of rhodamine-labeled FB and fluorescein-labeled Con A, it was noted that prior treatment of lymphocytes with FB prevented staining and capping by fluorescein-labeled Con A. Inhibition may have been due to the inability of Con A to gain access to receptors on the cell surface which were occupied or blocked by FB.
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Chaparas, S.D., Kim, S.J. (1988). The Immunologic Significance of Aspergillus fumigatus Fractions. In: Vanden Bossche, H., Mackenzie, D.W.R., Cauwenbergh, G. (eds) Aspergillus and Aspergillosis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3505-2_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3505-2_6
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