Maruyama vaccine is prepared from tubercle bacilli of human type, and is consisted mainly of polysac charide fraction of tubercle bacilli. In the present paper, the author made a study on the effect of Maruyama vaccine on experimental tuberculosis of guinea pigs with special reference to autopsy find ings and immunochemical properties.
Pure strain of male guinea pigs, 24 in number, were used for the study, and they were divided into 7 groups as shown in Fig. 1. Macroscopical examinations were conducted on Organe and Ly mphnodes taken from autopsied guinea pigs. The number of eosinophilic leucocytes was counted at 1 week before infection, 2 and 7 weeks after infection by the Bonner's method. The immunochemical observation of animal serum and its electrophoretical fractions were made by Takahashi-Adachi's kaolin agglutination reaction sensitized with Takahashi's phospholipids and Maruyama vaccine. Analysis of antibody was done by Williams-Graber's method and Poulik's method. Changes of serum protein fractions were observed by paper electrophoresis. The results were the following:
1) No animal died during the experiment.
2) As shown in Fig. 2, the increase of body weight was most marked in group C treated with high concentration Maruyama vaccine alone.
3) Lesions in infected site was most obvious in group A as shown in Fig. 3. Local lesions were, in general, slight in group C.
4) Changes in regional lymphnodes were slighter in groups E and F treated with SM than in the other groups. (Fig. 4)
5) As shown in Fig. 5, macroscopical changes in spleen, lung and liver were most marked in group A, less in groups C and D, and least in groups E and F.
6) Increase in the number of eosinophilic leucocytes was most marked in group C at 2 weeks after infection, which suggests the influence of high concentration Maruyama vaccine. (Fig. 6)
7) As seen in Fig. 7, antibody corresponds to Maruyama vaccine was widely distributed from α globulin to γ-globulin, while antibody corresponds to phospholipids was distributed mainly in γ-globulin.
8) By paper electrophoretic analysis, slight in crease of α-globulin was observed in group B, albumin was not reduced and α and γ-globulin were increased in group C, nearly the same pattern seen in group A was found in group D, and a and globulin remained unchanged in groups E and F.
By the use of Maruyama vaccine, antibody corresponds to polysaccharide fraction of the vaccine showed increase, and by electrophoretical analysis, the relative increase of α and γ-globulin was observed in animals infected with H
2Rv and treated by the vaccine alone. The increase was, however, not so marked in animals treated by the low concentration vaccine, especially together with SM. The facts suggest that the effect of Maruyama vaccine shows certain correlation with the increase of α -globulin in serum, and the effect is diminished when animals were treated effectively by antituber culous drugs. The poor effect of Maruyama vaccine in animals treated together with SM may beexplained by the assumption that the excess of tuberculopolysaccharide, as was noted by Raffel et al. or Seibert et al., causes the unbalance between tuberculopolysaccharide corresponding antibody and tuberculoprotein corresponding antibody due to the consumption of α-globulin fraction corresponding to tuberculo-polysaccharide.
In conclusion, Maruyama vaccine prevents the reduction of albumin and increases α and γ-globulin, thus increases resistance to tuberculous inflammation, but in order to confirm the correlation between Maruyama vaccine and specific tuberculostatic factor located in α-globulin, further studies are necessary.
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