Natural Antibodies Against Yeast-Like Fungi As Measured by Slide-Agglutination

Abstract

Summary and Conclusions A survey was made of the natural agglutinins against five different yeast-like fungi in the sera of 114 humans and 52 rabbits. Of the rabbit sera, 81 per cent reacted with at least one organism. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was most frequently agglutinated to the highest titer (42 per cent of the sera). Of the human sera, 95 per cent reacted with at least one organism. Candida albicans was most frequently agglutinated to the highest titer (45 per cent of the sera). The pattern of my findings lends support to the theory according to which a considerable proportion of so-called natural antibodies represent normal serum constituents. This is indicated by the fact that the incidence of agglutinins appears to be independent of the likelihood of exposure to a given organism. The advantages of slide-agglutination as compared with tube-agglutination for “yeasts” are discussed.