Cooperative binding of a complement component to antigen-antibody complexes. III. Complexes containing IgM antibodies.

The first component of guinea pig complement (C1)2) is bound in a cooperative manner to antigen-antibody complexes containing rabbit IgM antibodies, as was previously shown to be the case for IgG antibodies. The shape of the binding curves is consistent with an allosteric mechanism involving clusters of 10 interacting C1 binding sites. Similar results were obtained with IgM antibodies against an artificial hapten and against a natural constituent of the erythrocyte membrane.