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Letter from Linus Pauling to Karl Landsteiner. July 15, 1940.
Pauling reports that Landsteiner's serum and antigens have arrived, but his experiments
with the substances have been unsuccessful. He proposes an experiment on the presence
or absence of antibodies in various types of rabbit blood. He requests that Landsteiner
inform him if a similar experiment has been performed previously.
Transcript
July 15, 1940
Dr. Karl Landsteiner
Newfane, Vermont
Dear Dr. Landsteiner:
Your serum and antigens arrived safely, and Dr. Campbell and I
have begun experiments with then, with however no results of interest so
far.
I have thought of an experiment which might he of great interest in showing the presence
or absence of antibodies with two kinds of complementary regions, and I am writing
to you now to ask if the experiment has ever been carried out. I notice that AB
erythrocytes are completely agglutinated by either α serum or β serum, and I suppose
also by rabbit antibodies to either A or B erythrocytes. This shows that AB blood
contains corpuscles which individually possess both A and B groups. Hence we would
predict that rabbit antibodies to these corpuscles would be of three kinds, α-α, β-β,
and α-β. Now the following experiment should test for the presence of α-β. Let
some A erythrocytes be treated with an excess of AB antiserum, sufficiently great
so that agglutination does not occur, each erythrocyte being completely coated with
antibodies. Let these coated cells be washed and then added to a suspension of B
erythrocytes. If the serum contained α-β antibodies, agglutination of the cells
should occur. If not, there should be no agglutination. A similar experiment could
be carried out with serum of O type blood, to test for the presence of α-β antibodies
in this serum. Can you tell me whether this experiment has been carried out and
with what results? If it has not been done, I would plan to do it.
With best regards, I am
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling
LP:jr
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