The Thromboplastic Effects of Tissue Extracts and Their Inhibition by Immune Sera

Abstract

Mucosa of the chicken cecum, whether from normal chickens or from those infected with Eimeria tenella, when suspended in saline, homogenized, centrifuged and injd. intraven. into chickens, caused almost instantaneous death. These fatalities were due to intravascular coagulation and, in the light of findings recorded in the literature on intravascular coagulation, the clotting factor injd. was probably throinboplastin. The chicken mucosal extract was tolerated in large doses by rabbit. 8 days after the injns. the rabbit''s blood, when incubated with the mucosal extract, inhibited its thrombo-plastic activity. The inhibition was probably due to antibodies against the thromboplastin. Other chicken tissue extracts, namely, brain, lung, testis, and the digestive tract exclusive of the cecum, proved lethal to chickens in the same manner as the cecum. Brain and lung were tolerated by rabbit and inhibitory substances were built up in the rabbit against them. The anti-lung serum inhibited the effect of the mucosal extracts as well as the effect of the lung extract, showing a lack of organ specificity of the thromboplastic antigen. Mammalian lung was not lethal to chickens. Guinea fowl, pigeon, and turkey tissues were lethal to chicken. Saline extracts of cecal cores resulting from hemorrhage due to E. tenella infection in chickens were toxic to chickens in the same manner as mucosal extract. The toxicity of these core extracts could be neutralized by a rabbit antiserum against chicken cecal mucosa. An extract of normal cecal contents did not cause intravascular coagulation in chicken. Normal rabbit serum, rabbit anti-chicken seruin, or normal chicken serum gave no inhibition of the activity of the tissue extracts comparable with that of the rabbit anti-substance.