Quantitative Analyses of Certain Enteric Bacteria and Bacterial Extracts: II. Discrimination of Sonic Extracts by...

Bacterial extracts prepared by ultrasonic disruption were reacted with both narrow- and broad-spectrum reference (homologous) and cross-reacting (heterologous) precipitins produced in rabbits. Quantitation of the reaction was obtained by densitometry of the antigen-antibody interface. Comparisons were made of sonic extracts from various starting populations all equated to the same nitrogen concentrations, and of various nitrogen levels derived from five bacterial population levels prepared separately. Sources of error are probed to show under what circumstances cross-reactions would be of greater magnitude than reference ones. The feasibility was shown of using quantitative densitometry of the interface combined with broadly reacting precipitins to identify bacteria on an intergeneric and interspecies scale. Problems associated with the use of absorbed or monospecific precipitins are explained.