The Mechanism of the Hemagglutination Reaction

Abstract

The hemagglutinating and the precipitating abilities of rabbit antibodies to BSA and to WSR were destroyed by digestion with papain, and by digestion with pepsin followed by reduction with mercaptoethylamine. The univalent antibody preparations were shown to inhibit the precipitin and hemagglutination reactions of the original undigested antisera. However, after pepsin digestion alone, the antibody preparations retained their precipitating and hemagglutinating abilities. From these results it was concluded that the participation of divalent antibodies was required for both precipitin and hemagglutination reactions.