title: Effects of laboratory maintenance on the nature of surface reactive antigens of Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
abstract: The extensive in vitro cultivation methods used in propagating and maintaining gonococcal cells were found to affect their virulence, antigenicity, and ultrastructure. Adapting a laboratory-maintained strain of gonococci to animal virulence resulted in two lines of pilated cells with similar colonial morphologies. The animal-adapted cells, however, had a greater amount of extracellular pili and a more prominent peptidoglycan cell wall layer. They were also more resistant to the bactericidal effects of guinea-pig complement and more reactive in macroagglutination and bactericidal tests with strain-specific gonococcal antibody. In comparative guinea-pig protection trials, formalin-fixed cells of the animal-adapted cell line were 500 times more effective as immunogens than the laboratory-maintained cell line.
mesh_terms: D000372:Agglutination Tests; D000818:Animals; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D002460:Cell Line; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000276:immunology*; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D009344:Neisseria gonorrhoeae / Q000276:immunology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial