[Normal rabbit sera. An immunologic and immunohistologic study]

Reported in this paper are results obtained from immunological and immunohistochemical studies into non-immune rabbit sera which were tested for various antimycobacterial antibodies. 11% of the sera were found to be positive by transmigration electrophoresis, while antibodies against mycobacteria were recorded from 94% of all rabbits by peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP), an immunohistological technique of higher sensitivity. Several owners had kept rabbits together with fowl, which was considered to be one of the causes of very high contamination of rabbit stock with mycobacterial antigens. Antimycobacterial antisera and control sera should be obtained from animals with no record of natural immunisation against mycobacteria, since this is the only way to avoid falsely positive reactions, primarily to the use of the immunohistological PAP technique.