Neutralization of bacterial viruses by antibodies of young animals

The cofactor activity of complement of precolostral newborn pig serum was compared with the haemolytic and bactericidal activity. Using current decomplementation treatment it was found that all three types of activity are destroyed in parallel i.e. haemolytic, bactericidal and cofactor (heat inactivation, EDTA, ammonia, trypsin, adsorption to zymosan or immune precipitate). In an ultracentrifugation analysis the haemolytic, bactericidal and cofactor activities showed the same sedimentation pattern. Using gel filtration on a Sephadex G 200 column, the cofactor activity was found in the fraction which contained all basic complement components. On the basis of these results it can be concluded that the complement of piglet serum acts as a factor which potentiates the neutralization of bacteriophage by the sera of the newborn.