SEROLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MYCOBACTERIA AS DETERMINED BY AGAR-DIFFUSION PRECIPITATION TEST

II. EXPERIMENTS WITH ATYPICAL MYCOBACTERIA ISOLATED CHIEFLY IN AMERICA

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken in an attempt to determine the antigenic relationship existing between atypical mycobacteria isolated by the authors and the American strains. The following results were obtained:
1. There was some evidence suggesting that an antigenic relationship exist between mammalian tubercle bacilli and the atypical mycobacteria used in this experiment.
2. American strains 100616 and 121326 produced serologically almost the same precipitin pattern which very much resemble those produced by group 2 (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). Therefore, it seems that these strains belong to the same serological type.
3. The P 1 antigen contains an antigenically unique part distinguishing it from the P 16 antigen.
4. All antigen preparations did not react with antiserum for Mycobacterium phlei.