Immunological studies with an m-deficient histoplasmin skin-test antigen.

Previous studies have shown that a single skin test to histoplasmin may induce complement-fixing antibodies or M precipitins (or both) to histoplasmin in histoplasmin-sensitive, but serologically negative, individuals. Ideally a skin-test antigen should be one which detects hypersensitivity without stimulating humoral antibodies. Histoplasmin skin-test antigens presently used contain both H and M antigens. The present study was undertaken to evaluate an histoplasmin skin-test antigen deficient in the M component but containing the H antigen. Thirty histoplasmin-hypersensitive subjects were bled prior to administration of the experimental skin-test antigen and at various time intervals thereafter. Only six of the thirty hypersensitive subjects showed serological responses. The sera of the six, however, only showed weak precipitin reactions, five showed M bands, and only one showed an M and an H band. None showed complement-fixation titers with either the yeast or mycelial antigens of Histoplasma capsulatum. Our data suggest that the use of a skin-test antigen purified to contain only H component would detect histoplasmin hypersensitivity without inducing antibodies and would eliminate false-positive serological reactions caused by the M component.