Aspects of the Immune Hemolytic Reaction

Abstract
The products of immune lysis, predominantly the stromata, inhibit both guinea pig C′and pig C′, the only ones examined. The components of C′ affected are principally C′2 and C′4; there is a smaller and nonuniform change in C′1 and no measurable change in the activity of C′3. This is not the general pattern observed in the fixation of C′ by antigen-antibody complexes. Rather it is similar to the inactivation of C′ by the dipeptide glycyl-tyrosine, which acts probably as a competitive substrate for proteolytic components of C′. The results clearly indicate that sensitization of stromata with hemolysin is a prerequisite for rendering the stromata inhibitory. The inhibition is sufficiently rapid and extensive to play a part in determining the over-all characteristics of the immune hemolytic reaction.