STUDIES ON STAPHYLOCOCCAL COAGULASE

III. FURTHER STUDIES ON THE ANTIGENIC SPECIFICITY AND TYPING OF STAPHYLOCOCCAL COAGULASE AND DISTRIBUTION OF ANTICOAGULASES IN NORMAL HUMAN SERA

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1. At the present, coagulase of Staphylococcus aureus can be classified into 7 types. An attempt was made to classify staphylococcus strains using 7 antisera against their coagulases, and 82.5% of the strains were typable. Since a small number of strains failed to be classified with these 7 type anticoagulases, the authers expect that a few more new coagulases might be added in the future. However, a majority of the freshly isolated strains with satisfactory coagulase productivity may be classified with these 7 antisera.
2. There was a correlation between coagulase type IV and phage group I and between coagulase type V and phage group II. However, strains of phage group III were divided into coagulase types, I, II, III, VI and VII, strains of phage group IV into coagulase types II, V, VI and VII. Thus, phage groups III and IV were not associated with coagulase types, and there was also no direct relationship between a specific phage group and a specific coagulase type.
3. The distribution of anticoagulases among sera from 100 normal adults was examined with 7 coagulase types, and only 14% were found to be devoid of the antibodies, while 86% possessed more than one type of the antibody.
4. No remarkable difference exist among the 7 anticoagulases in their frequencies of occurrence in normal subjects, although the antibody against coagulase type IV occurred at a somewhat higher frequency than the others.
5. In normal adults, the anticoagulase titer were relatively low, about 80% being less than 1:16. The highest titer was 1:128, and higher titers than this were not encountered in any of the individuals examined.