Failure of Immune Sera to Enhance Significantly Phagocytosis of Staphylococus aureus: Nonspecific Adsorption of Phagocytosis-Promoting Factors.

Serum from rabbits immunized with either heat-killed or live nonencapsulated Staphylococcus aureus failed further to enhance phagocytosis and intracellular killing of the homologous organism by either normal rabbit polymorphonuclear leukocytes or monocytes, when compared with normal rabbit serum. These immune sera did, however, show an increase in agglutinating and precipitating antibody level. Adsorption of normal human serum with some gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, yeast, and some inert particles significantly reduced the phagocytosis-promoting factors of the serum. It would seem, then, that nonencapsulated S. aureus differs from other pathogenic bacteria in that the humoral antibacterial factors promoting its phagocytosis and intracellular killing are not significantly enhanced by infection or immunization.