IDIOTYPY OF RABBIT ANTIBODIES

Abstract

The idiotypic patterns detected in the anti-Salmonella typhi serum of one given bleeding have been sought in other bleedings of the same rabbit. Idiotypic patterns carried by antibodies of the second bleeding are not always found in those of the first bleeding. Bifurcated precipitation zones in gels (double diffusion in cells) have been observed in the reaction of several anti-idiotypic sera with the sera of the first and second bleedings of three rabbits, and apparently indicate that idiotypic patterns which were carried by the same molecule in the first bleeding were carried by two separate molecules in the second bleeding. In a comparison of idiotypy of two anti-S. typhi serum samples of one rabbit, the collection of which had been separated by a very long interruption of the immunization, all the idiotypes detected in the early bleeding were also detected in the late bleeding; several idiotypes were detected in the serum of the late bleeding and not in that of the early bleeding.