Some quantitative aspects of the passive sensitization of human basophils

We review the theory for the binding of IgE to Fc receptors on basophil surfaces. We then use the theory to analyze binding experiments of Malveaux et al. and T. Ishizaka on the passive sensitization of basophils from a patient with chronic myelocytic leukemia and 75% basophilia. From their data we determine that the forward rate constant for the binding of human IgE to receptors on these human basophils is (3.0 +/- 1.0) x 10(4) M-1 sec-1.