166 



THE ACTINOMYCETES, Vol. I 



filaments undergo fragmentation. Presence 

 of glucose inhibits adaptation to maltose. 

 The nature of adaptive enzyme seemed to be 

 different from maltase. For a maximum pi'o- 

 duction of the mycelium, a switch to a slower 

 and more economical metabolism of carbo- 

 hydrate, such as that of maltose in the 

 second growth phase, is essential. 



Antigenic Properties of Actinomycetes 



Considerable attention has been centered, 

 in recent years, upon the antigenic proper- 

 ties of actinomycetes. Biagi (1904), in look- 

 ing for a suitable system for classifying ac- 

 tinomycetes, other than their morphology 

 and physiology, decided to study their ser- 

 ological behavior. He immunized rabbits with 

 five aerobic forms and made cross-aggluti- 

 nation studies. Homologous and heterolo- 

 gous agglutination of low titer was obtained, 

 but the tubercle bacillus was not aggluti- 

 nated by any of the antisera. Calendoli 

 (1905) was also able to show some cross- 

 agglutination reactions between two actino- 

 mycete cultures. Choukevitch (1909), work- 

 ing with organisms that appeared to belong 

 largely to the genus Nocardia, obtained an 

 antiserum, by intravenous inoculations, that 

 "vvould agglutinate \'arious strains. Leao 

 (1928) used sera from human actinomycosis 

 cases and an antigen from one of the isolated 

 cultures; positive agglutination was obtained 

 in a titer of 1 : IGO, complement fixation being 

 positive, and precipitin tests negative. Holm 

 (1930) divided a group of strains of the 

 anaerobic Actinomyces into two subgroups 

 on the basis of cross-agglutination. 



Aoki (193G) has shown that complement - 

 binding reactions of actinomycetes cor- 

 responded fully with their agglutination 

 properties. Nine agghitiuating types were 

 esta})lished, one of which was anaerobic and 

 the others aerobic. Two of the aerobes ap- 

 peared to be of the nocardia t.ype and six of 

 the streptomyces type. The anaerobic and 

 the first two aerobic forms gave clear aggluti- 



nation reactions; for the other six, aggluti- 

 nation could be demonstrated only with diffi- 

 culty. The spores of the latter appeared to 

 contain more of the agglutination receptors 

 than did the mycelium. 



Breley (1933) obtained such highly erratic 

 results for complement fixation and precipi- 

 tation that he concluded, "Nocardia and 

 Streptothrix are bad antigens in vivo and 

 in vitro. ^^ Lieske's results also tended to ques- 

 tion the significance of the results obtained 

 by this method in differentiating various 

 groups of actinomycetes. Lentze (1938), as 

 well, drew attention to the technical diffi- 

 culties involved in carrying out agglutina- 

 tion experiments with actinomycetes, be- 

 cause of frequent spontaneous agglutination. 

 He demonstrated the existence of R and S 

 strains among the cultures isolated from 

 clinical cases of actinomycosis. Goyal (1937) 

 studied a number of cultures of actinomy- 

 cetes, representing at least three of the 

 genera now recognized ; all of them were des- 

 ignated, however, as strains of Streptothrix. 

 He came to the conclusion that an extract, 

 comparable to tuberculin and designated as 

 streptothricin, had the same antigenic prop- 

 erties as similar extracts of the tuberculosis 

 and diphtheria organisms. He suggested the 

 presence of antigens common to all these 

 groups. This did not agree, howe^'er, with 

 the results of other investigators. Claypole 

 (1913), for example, demonstrated that sera 

 from aerobic pathogenic nocardia and hu- 

 man tubercle bacillus would show, b.y com- 

 plement fixation tests, a certain degree of 

 quantitative differentiation between the 

 antigenic substances of these organisms. 



Erikson (1940) established that the an- 

 aei'obic human (A. israeli) antl l)()\'ine (.4. 

 bovis) strains were serologically related 

 within themseh'es, but there was no cross- 

 reaction with representative aerobic actino- 

 mycetes, saprophytes or parasites. Ludwig 

 and Hutchinson (1949) reported that sero- 

 logical procedures can be used as an aid in 



