THE FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SPECIFIC AGGLUTININS AND PRECIPITINS

Abstract

This review suggests the importance of agglomerating antibodies in tissues and indicates the need of greater emphasis on their earliest effects. Agglutinins may combine with their respective antigens both in the blood and tissues and thereby promote adherence of the microorganisms to one another and to the tissues. This process, by its opsonizing effect, also promotes phagocytosis and the more effective localization and destruction of the invading agents. Precipitins, similarly, have been shown to react in. the blood and tissues, causing either an accelerated removal of antigen from the blood or its prompt localization near the portal of entry. The evidence strengthens the view that these agglomerating reactions may be looked upon, fundamentally, as part of the mechanism whereby foreign proteins which may enter the tissues parenterally, are immobilized and destroyed, thus tending to ensure the integrity of the body''s proteins. The adverse effects may be considered, essentially, as toxicological by-products of the reaction, depending presumably upon quantitative variations in kinds and relative amounts of antibody and antigen reacting; under some circumstances these reactions may constitute actual disease, as with serum disease and allergic inflammation from various causes.