[The development of species-specific test systems for the rapid diagnosis of staphylococcal infections]

Highly purified teichoic acids (TA) were isolated from Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis and characterized. The preparations of TA were highly species-specific. For the first time monospecific sera to S. aureus and S. epidermidis were obtained. From these monospecific sera immunoglobulins were isolated and used for the preparation of reagents for the passive hemagglutination (PHA) test and the enzyme immunoassay (EIA). The sensitivity of the PHA test and EIA was 15 micrograms/ml when S. aureus and S. epidermidis were used and 10(6)-10(7) cells/ml when whole microbial cells were used. The diagnostic preparations proved to be highly specific and did not react with other preparations isolated from S. aureus and S. epidermidis, as well as from bacteria belonging to other taxa. Experiments on rabbits, carried out with the use of newly developed test systems, demonstrated that staphylococci could be detected in the blood as early as 10 minutes after the intravenous infection of the animals and until day 12.