Studies on Paul-Bunnell (P-B) antigen-antibody system. II. P-B antigens in extracts of lymphoma-leukemia spleens and pathologic sera.

Preparations obtained by the chloroform-methanol extraction procedure from spleen tissues of patients with Hodgkin's disease, lymphomas, and leukemias, as well as from peripheral blood buffy coat of infectious mononucleosis (IM) patients were studied for the presence of 2 Paul-Bunnell (P-B) antigens; BS antigen shared by bovine red blood cells (BRBC) and sheep red blood cells (SRBC) and another, B antigen characteristic for BRBC. Both BS and B antigens were demonstrated by means of agglutination inhibition tests in over 40% of these extracts. None of the extracts from spleens, tonsils, and buffy coat of apparently normal human beings contained these antigens. P-B antigens of lymphoma-leukemia extracts were further purified by DEAE-Sephadex column chromatography. The purified fractions of some of these spleen extracts formed a precipitation line with IM sera, which merged into a reaction of identity with the lines formed by P-B antigens of BRBC. In studying various pathologic sera, B antigen was detected in sera of 28% of lymphoma-leukemia patients, 15% of patients with carcinomas of internal organs, and 3% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. On the other hand, BS antigen was found in only 3% of lymphoma-leukemia sera. These results confirmed our previous observations and indicated that both BS and B antigens are expressed as neoantigens on the patient's spleen cells as a result of pathologic processes in lymphoreticular malignancies.