AN EVALUATION OF THE PLATE COMPLEMENT FIXATION TEST WITH JAPANESE B ENCEPHALITIS AND POLIO VIRUSES

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Medical Science and Biology Vol. 11; no. 4; pp. 259 - 275
• Main Authors: OKUNO, TAKESHI, OKUMA, MITSUKO, NOMURA, SHIGEKO, KITAOKA, MASAMI
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases Editorial Committee 1958
• Subjects: Asian Continental Ancestry Group; Bone Plates; Complement Fixation Tests; Encephalitis; Encephalitis, Japanese - diagnosis; Humans; Old Medline; Poliomyelitis - diagnosis; Poliovirus; ENCEPHALITIS, JAPANESE B/diagnosis; POLIOMYELITIS/diagnosis
• ISSN: 0021-5112; 1884-2828
• DOI: 10.7883/yoken1952.11.259

It has been known that complement fixation test (CFT) is one of the most useful methods in serodiagnosis of many viral infections. For the establishment of the CFT technique, three different approaches have generally been made; that is to say, tests were performed by grading the amount of antigen, antibody (serum) or complement. For a more accurate estimation, a combined method, taking as variances two of the above three factors, is considered to be extremely favorable. On the other hand, evidences have been accumulated (Adair et al., 1953; Demeio and Walker, 1957) that it is insufficient to check specimens against only one kind of antigen in actual practice of serodiagnosis. Thus, it was quite reasonable that Fulton and Dumbell (1949) invented the plate CFT, minimizing the amount of reagents to be employed and increasing the accuracy of titration, and rendered possible 2- or 3-dimensional titration which might have been impossible with other methods. Ever since, there have appeared a considerable number of reports which dealt with the plate technique employing antigens such as Coxsackie (Kraft and Melnick, 1950), suckling mice adapted polio (Le Bouvier, 1953), tissue culture derived polio (Black and Melnick, 1954; Baumeister and Miller, 1956; Tyrrel et al., 1957; Hennessen, 1955), influenza, mumps, LCM (Hennessen, 1955; Jochheim et al., 1957), herpes simplex (Balducci, et al., 1957) or ECHO (Nihoul, , 1957) . In the meantime, some investigators pointed out the relatively poor reproducibility of this method. In fact, in our laboratory too, earlier tests frequently failed to prove that this new technique would give as satisfactory results as the ordinary tube CFT with polio and Japanese B encephalitis virus antigens. However, further studies analysing various factors involved in the plate CFT technique could eventually reveal that a satisfactory reproducibility would be expected by a more careful performance of the test. The present paper reports the quantitative relations among various reagents as well as influences of different experimental conditions in the plate CFT with Japanese B and polio virus antigens, as has been brought forward as a result of these studies. In the course of the present studies, the main purpose has been tos work out a formula of the test which would consistently provide a reliable result.