XXIII. THE PRODUCTION OF ILEMOLYTIC AMBOCEP- 

 TORS BY MEANS OF SERUM INJECTIONS. 1 



A Contribution to Our Knowledge of Receptors. 



By J. MORGENROTH, Member of the Institute. 



As a result of the side-chain theory of immunity, and especially 

 in consequence of the conception of "receptor" which this theory 

 brings with it, our views concerning the cytotoxins have to a great 

 extent been emancipated from the morphological point of view and 

 placed on a chemical basis. This is seen most clearly by looking at 

 the complex hsemolysins of serum, for of all the various cytotoxins 

 these have been most clearly analyzed. 



As is well known, if an animal is injected with erythrocytes of a 

 foreign species, there develop in the serum of this animal new sub- 

 stances, the hcemolytic amboceptors (immune bodies). The ambo- 

 ceptors are bound, above all, by the red blood-cells of that species 

 whose blood was used for the injection, and it is through this binding 

 that the amboceptors make possible the hsemolytic action of the 

 complement contained in fresh serum. According to the side-chain 

 theory the anchoring of the amboceptors is the result of chemical 

 processes, which again are based on the existence of certain groups 

 of the blood-cells' protoplasm, the receptors. If on the basis of this 

 theory one has once clearly seen that the specific binding is strictly 

 a chemical reaction between receptor and amboceptor (or rather 

 between their haptophore groups), it becomes quite evident that the 

 morphological structure of the cell concerned in the reaction is some- 

 thing quite secondary. This is, of course, apart from certain prac- 

 tical points which are mainly the indicators of the deleterious action 

 exerted by the coaction of amboceptor and complement. Among 

 these would be, in this case, escape of haemoglobin; in the cases of 

 other cytotoxins, disintegration and solution of the cell, cessation 



1 Reprint from the Munch, med. Wochenschr. 1902, No. 25. 



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