Chemistry: analytical and immunological testing – For preexisting immune complex or auto-immune disease – Immune complex
Patent
1982-06-11
1985-10-22
Padgett, Ben R.
Chemistry: analytical and immunological testing
For preexisting immune complex or auto-immune disease
Immune complex
435 7, 424 85, 424 86, 424 87, 436509, 436531, 436540, 436542, 436804, 436811, 436815, G01N 3354
Patent
active
045489092
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a method of diagnosis.
When a patient is infected by a micro-organism, or antigen, the entry of the micro-organism into the patient's bloodstream causes the production of an antibody by the patient's body and the antibody combines with an antigen from the micro-organism and with "complement", which is contained in the blood, to form an immune complex in the patient's body.
Recently immune complexes have been implicated in the aetiology of some human diseases, in particular as a cause of tissue damage, and thus the accurate measurement of complexes is of growing importance to medical practitioners. Many of the procedures currently used for their measurement rely upon interaction of complex with the complement system, for instance by virtue of the decreases in serum complement levels so caused. Alternatively, complex may be detected by measuring differences in their physico-chemical characteristics relative to uncombined antibody. These techniques, however, are generally insensitive, inaccurate, difficult to use and give little information about the antigen and antibody components of the complex. Other techniques make use of living cells or human reagents and as such are unsuitable for application on the extensive scale required by hospital laboratories.
During the initial stages of infection the patient's body contains an excess of infecting micro-organisms over antibody but as the infection proceeds the body produces more antibody until there is an excess of antibody. In the early stages only a small amount of complex is formed in view of the small amounts of antibody produced by the body, and this does not activate the complement, so little damage is caused to the body and no symptoms are detected. As the production of antibody increases however the amount of complex increases correspondingly, and as the stage approaches where the antigen and antibody are in equal proportions in the body the complex is present in substantial amounts. Moreover, it has been found that the complex produced at this stage has a half-life of about a week, so its effect is felt over a prolonged period. On passing the antigen/antibody balance point the antibody is produced in excess and it has been found that the half-life of the complex produced then is reduced to a few hours. Thereafter the antibody excess increases until the antigen and the complex are no longer present.
In general, symptoms appear in a patient only during the period of antibody excess, and this may be due to the high concentration of complex present, both of long half-life from before the antigen/antibody balance point and of short half-life from during and after the balance point. By the time that the symptoms appear, therefore, the infection is well advanced and treatment may have to be drastic. Further, the symptoms often appear after the infectious stage has been passed so that the infection may have been already passed on to others before detection.
It has previously been proposed to determine the amount of immune complex in a sample by means of an assay using conglutinin, as this material has the property of combining with an immune complex. The use of conglutinin has however been restricted to the assay.
According to the present invention there is provided a method of diagnosis comprising providing a material for attachment to an immune complex, obtaining an extract from a living body, treating the body extract with said material thereby to attach any immune complex present in the extract to said material, detecting the presence of attached immune complex, treating the attached immune complex with a series of different reagents or reagent mixtures known to react with specific immune complex components, and detecting the presence or absence of reaction between each reagent or reagent mixture and the immune complex thereby to identify the immune complex wherein the body extract is obtained from the body prior to the appearance of symptoms of infection in the body.
By using the method of this invention it is possible to test indi
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Moskowitz M.
Padgett Ben R.
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