Effects of acute cartilaginous injury on serum and cartilage lysozyme levels

Acute cartilage degradation was produced in rabbits by the intravenous injection of crude papain. This resulted in a significant rise in serum lysozyme in 97% of the animals, as well as a fall in the residual lysozyme content of auricular and costal cartilage. The rise in serum lysozyme paralleled the rise in serum chondroitin sulfate. The source of the rise in lysozyme appeared to be the release of extracellular, nonlysosomal lysozyme from the cartilage matrix. Serum lysozyme elevation in arthritic disorders may reflect cartilage degradation.

A factor in guinea-pig serum with accelerating effect on immune immobilization of Treponema pallidum (IAF). Isolation, purification and differentiation from the known haemolytic complement components and from lysozyme

By consecutive euglobulin precipitation, gel filtration (Sephadex G-200/G-100), di-ethylaminoethyl (DEAE) and carboxy-methyl (CM 52) cellulose column chromatography a protein that has an enhancing effect on immune immobilization of Treponema pallidum was isolated from guinea-pig serum (Immobilization Accelerating Factor (IAF). The final isolation product was shown to be in a state of functional purity. IAF does not contain any of the known haemolytic complement subunits (C1—C9) or the muramidase lysozyme involved in immune immobilization of T. pallidum.

The sedimentation rate of IAF was estimated to be 8.1S. The approximate molecular weight was shown to be 150,000. The purified factor increased the number of immobilized treponemes in the modified Treponema pallidum immobilization test by more than 50 per cent.

A direct cytochemical method for the identification of lysozyme in various tissues

This report describes a cytochemical technique for the demonstration of lysozyme in a variety of cells, including normal human and rabbit neutrophil granules, rabbit lacrimal gland cells and blasts obtained from bone marrow and peripheral blood of patients with myelomonocytic and histiomonocytic leukemia. It utilizes the dis-azo dye Biebrich scarlet which stains lysozyme as well as other basic proteins. The method is made specific for lysozyme by the use of N-acetylglucosamine oligosaccharides obtained from an acid hydrolysate of chitin. These greatly diminish the color reaction obtained when Biebrich scarlet is added to lysozyme, presumably by competing with Biebrich scarlet for the active site of the lysozyme molecule. Cytochemically, this is expressed as a marked diminution in the ability of Biebrich scarlet to stain the cytoplasm of lysozyme-containing cells if these cells have been pretreated with a hydrolysate of chitin. Evidence is presented that this stain is specific for lysozyme rather than a nonspecific reaction between Biebrich scarlet and tissue bases, particularly arginine.