[Experimental immune arteriosclerosis of rabbits. Immunoenzymatic study]

The immunization of rabbits with aorta homogenates, constituants of the arterial tissue, serum glycoproteins, or lipopolysaccharides from enterobacteria, leads to the production of cross-reacting antibodies and to identical arteriosclerotic lesions. The incubation of aortic slices with anti-rabbit IgG sheep Fab, or anti-rabbit complement sheep IgG, labelled with peroxidase, shows that IgG and complement are bound on prenecrotic cells and on sheaths of elastic fibers. The binding sites are the same, whatever the immunizing agent. The antigenic site blockade prevents the response. The indirect immunoenzymatic test, performed on aortic slices of young control rabbits, shows that the different immune sera obtained with the various antigens bind on the same arterial structures, that is the sheath of elastic fibers, the cellular membrane and cytoplasm. The response to this test is clearly decreased, if not suppressed, by absorption of the immune sera with one of the three following sugars: mannose, NA glucosamine, and sialic acid. These data confirm that the arteriosclerosis induced in the rabbit by immunization is actually of an immune nature and show that the antibodies thus formed are bound on the same arterial structures, independently of the immunizing agent. They suggest that the sugars could be haptens, taking part in cross-reactions and antibody binding.