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Active immunization of NMRI mice against Serratia marcescens. II. K-antigen extracts

W H Traub1, M Spohr, D Bauer

  • 1Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Hygiene, Universität des Saarlandes, Homburg/Saar.

Zentralblatt Fur Bakteriologie, Mikrobiologie, Und Hygiene. Series A, Medical Microbiology, Infectious Diseases, Virology, Parasitology
|December 1, 1987
PubMed

The minimal active immunogenic doses (intraperitoneal administration) of crude K-antigen extracts of Serratia marcescens for NMRI mice were 80 ng. Following ultracentrifugation (300,000 x g, 16 h), supernatant fluids of three K-antigen extracts were free of contaminating DNA, RNA, and 2-keto-3-deoxy-D-manno-octonic acid (KDO), and the contents of Limulus amoebocyte lysate-reactive lipopolysaccharide (LPS) had been reduced from 100- to 1000-fold. The minimal active immunogenic doses of two ultracentrifuged K-antigen extracts were 2 and 10 micrograms, respectively. A mucoid strain of S. marcescens (SM 20-M; serotype O6/O14:H12) yielded nonmucoid (= SM 29-NM) variants that had lost most of the O6/O14 O-antigen (LPS) and all of the SM 29-M K-antigen extract reactivity (ELISA test) and which were ca. 5-fold less mouse-virulent. Crude K-antigen extracts from S. marcescens strain SM 29-M and variant SM 29-NM failed to protect NMRI mice against strain SM 29-M.

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