Abstract
We studied changes in the 2-mercaptoethanol (2 ME) sensitive antibody level in the hemoagglutinin inhibition (HI) reaction positive sera of wild birds, chicken and the patient after natural infection with Japanese encephalitis virus, and also localization of 2 ME sensitive antibody in serum fractions. The results were as follows.
1) 2 ME sensitive antibody was present in 6 out of the 11 night herons studied, one of the 6 white herons, and 6 of the 7 chicken, in August through October, 1966.
2) HI antibody in the chicken was proved to exist in γ-globulin fraction by starch block electrophoresis.
3) 2 ME sensitive antibody in the chicken decreased with the lapse of time after infection accompanied by increase of resistant antibody.
4) HI antibodies composed of 2 ME sensitive antibody and 2 ME resistant antibody in the chicken were found to be contained in 2 kinds of serum fractions out of the three by Sephadex G-200 gel filtration.
5) From the above results, in items 3 and 4, we cannot necessarily ignore chicken as amplifier of Japanese encephalitis virus.
6) HI antibody in the patients' sera containing abundant 2 ME sensitive antibody was proved to exist in the first fraction containing 19 S antibody by Sephadex G-200 gel filtration.
