STUDIES ON ORGAN SPECIFICITY .16. UROGENITAL TISSUES AND AUTOANTIBODIES

Abstract

"Autoantibodies to the male accessory tissues of reproduction could be produced in rabbits by intensive isoimmunization, using saline extracts (SE) of prostate gland or of the total complex of accessory glands. Concomitant production of isoantibodies was shown to be rather improbable. Although the prostate gland was the tissue of ma-jor interest, the autoantigenic material in this tissue was found to be shared by the other accessory glands; namely, seminal vesicle, coagulating gland and bulbo-urethral gland. It was also found in seminal plasma, but evidence was collected to show that this activity resulted from admixture of fluids from the accessory tissues. This material was, however, absent from other members of the urogenital system such as kidney, bladder, testis and epididymis. It was also absent from a large variety of other rabbit tissues that were tested. The antigen can therefore be considered as an accessory gland-specific antigen. It was absent from the prostatic tissue of a number of other species, suggesting a high degree of species specificity. In some of the studies, the line of precipitation showed itself clearly double, although the 2 lines were always quite close together. The picture suggested that there were in fact 2 autoantigens. A second group of investigations was based on the use of ethanol-resistant (ER) preparations of accessory tissue. As with the SE preparations, antibodies could be elicited by isoimmunization. Although antibody levels by haemagglutination were much lower than in the SE systems, they were of significant magnitude, and the gel diffusion precipitation was at least as strong as for the SE system. The ER-anti-ER system showed two clear and well-separated lines, which were completely distinct from the anti-SE lines. Therefore, there are 2 additional antigens of accessory tissue that can be effective in isoimmunlzation.