Serological studies on Listeria grayi and Listeria murrayi

A cross-agglutination study between somatic antigens from reference strains of Listeria grayi and Listeria murrayi with rabbit antisera was done. L. murrayi antisera reacted, at low titres, with L. grayi but L. grayi antisera did not react with L. murrayi antigen. These results, together with agglutinin-absorption tests, led to the conclusion that the serologic relationship between L. grayi and L. murrayi is not as close as is thought. The two species seem to differ in at least one somatic factor, that might be designated O-XVI for L. grayi and O-XVII for L. murrayi. The serologic relationship of L. grayi and L. murrayi with other serovars of Listeria is discussed. The agglutination titre of 180 healthy ruminants against O-antigens of L. grayi and L. murrayi was also investigated; almost all the sera reacted with the antigens of these species, with similar titres (that reached 640) to those detected against O-antigens of serogroups 1/2 and 4.