Spermagglutinin titers and their relationship to fertility in isoimmunized female rabbits

The sera from 48 female rabbits immunized by a series of multiple intradermal injections of washed epididymal, washed ejaculated, and beta-amylase-treated rabbit spermatozoa in complete adjuvant were examined for spermagglutinins by the Kibrick gel agglutination test and a slight modification of the Shulman capillary agglutination test. Control animals receiving the adjuvant or saline usually had no positive titers. All three antigenic preparations produced similar titers, positive at dilutions as high as 8192-fold with Kibrick test and 256-fold with the Shulman test. Maximal titer development was reached 4 to 6 weeks after starting the immunization, and positive sera were obtained from some does for 25 weeks. The correlation coefficients between positive titers obtained by the two tests were r = 0.91 during the first 10 weeks and 0.41 at 15 to 25 weeks after immunization.