Inhibitory effect of formalin on the hapten modification of protein antigens

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Oral Biology Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 942 - 948
• Main Authors: Yoshikawa, Masataka, Doi, Masakatsu, Arai, Tohru, Toda, Tadao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japanese Association for Oral Biology 1985
• Subjects: closs-link; cresol; formalin; hapten; protein
• ISSN: 0385-0137
• DOI: 10.2330/joralbiosci1965.27.942

Formocresol is widely used in endodontic therapy as a root canal disinfective and pulp tissue fixative. Recently, it has been mentioned that autologous soluble components of the dental pulp which are modified by the agent can be rendered antigenically active to the host. Several investigators suggest that such alternative may be due to modification of the components by cresol. On the other hand, the clinical effect of formalin consists primarily in the action to many sorts of proteins in the root canal system. It is a well known fact that cross-links between protein end-groups are formed when formalin acts on proteins. Cross-linking of proteins may prevent hapten reaching susceptible group. This study was performed to estimate the inhibitory effect of formalin on the hapten modi - fication of proteins. Sodium dinitrobenzene sulfonate was used for haptenation of bovine r-globulin (BGG). A product containing about 50 dinitrophenyl groups per molecule of BGG is normally yielded by this procedure. A lower degree of modification was accomplished when BGG had been treated with formalin. It was confirmed that formalin had an inhibitory effect on the conjugation of dinitrophenyl groups to BGG.