Chemical Assay of the Tetanus Toxin Receptor in Nervous Tissue

Abstract

The fixation of tetanus toxin by the receptor in nervous tissue is highly specific in so far as tetanus toxic protein (and toxoid to a much smaller extent), and apparently nothing else, is adsorbed from solutions of ionic strength greater than 0.15. At lower ionic strengths certain other proteins may be adsorbed by a mechanism that is probably different. The specific adsorption of toxic protein has been used as the basis of a chemical method of assay of the receptor which depends on the estimation of the amount of protein adsorbed under prescribed conditions by the unknown amount of receptor from a fixed amount of crude tetanus toxin.