Duality of Hepatitis B Antigen and Its Antibody: I. Immunofluorescence Studies

Abstract

The specificity of fluorescent antibodies to hepatitis B (HB Ab) in the sera of patients with acute viral hepatitis and chronic aggressive hepatitis and precipitating HB Ab of human and animal origin were examined by indirect immunofluorescent technique performed on sections of liver that contained large quantities of hepatitis B antigen (HB Ag) localized in the nuclei and! or cytoplasm of hepatocytes. It was found that HB Ab from sera of patients with acute viral hepatitis and chronic aggressive hepatitis reacted predominantly with nuclear HB Ag. Precipitating HB Ab from man reacted predominantly with cytoplasmic HB Ag and those from hyperimmunized animals, almost exclusively with cytoplasmic HB Ag. These results provide conclusive evidence on the existence, at the cellular level (hepatocyte), of two immunochemically different specificities of HB Ag, the nuclear and the cytoplasmic. Accordingly, antibodies to HB Ag in the sera may be of either nuclear or cytoplasmic specificity, or both.