The accuracy of commercial calibration sera and assayed control sera.

Commercial calibration sera and assayed control sera have been extensively studied in parallel runs. An attempt has been made to assess the accuracy of the stated values of these sera, using mehtods that in two major quality control schemes have been shown to be reliably accurate. The Technicon product has proven to be generally the most reliable of the calibration sera. Many discrepancies were found in the assayed control sera values, particularly for calcium, phosphate and bilirubin, and our results indicate that the products of some manufacturers need to be improved.     

Comparison of intermethod analytical variability of patient sera and commercial quality control sera.

The intermethod analytical variability of 59 commercially available control sera was compared with that of patient sera. For this purpose, patient and control sera were assayed with respect to ten constituents (albumin, alkaline phosphatase, alpha-amylase, cholesterol, glucose, iron, lactate dehydrogenase, creatinine, protein, and urea), each with two analytical methods. Only 6 of the 59 control materials showed an intermethod analytical variability comparable to that of the patient sera for all of the determinations. The use of patient sera for the calibration of routine analytical methods is recommended.     

Que sera,sera: evolution of the swine H1N1 influenza A virus

About 2% of the world’s population is estimated to be chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). These chronic carriers are at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and its complications. Successful treatment of HCV infection is associated with improved quality of life and increased survival. Antiviral approaches were formerly based on interferon and therefore all patients with a contraindication to interferon were excluded from treatment (e.g., patients with decompensated disease, severe impairment of other organs). Very recently, interferon-free combinations have become available for genotypes 2 and 3. This review focuses on the most recently reported data on the various interferon-free combinations used (namely, sofosbuvir-based combinations, the ABT-450/ombitasvir/dasabuvir/ribavirin combination, the daclatasvir/asunaprevir combination, and the MK-5172/MK-8742 combination). All these combinations yielded amazing results in terms of efficacy (90–100%), tolerability and safety. If the problem of the high cost is overcome, interferon-free therapies will lead to what has long been a chimera, namely, an HCV-free world.     

Quantitative studies o the activities of anti-human tonsil sera and anti-human spleen sera against B lymphocyte.

Anti-human B lymphocyte serum (AHBS) was obtained by absorbing rabbit anti-human tonsil serum (ATOS) or rabbit anti-human spleen serum (ASPS) with human red cells, liver, neutrophils, thymocytes and glutaraldehyde insolubilized human serum. Specificities of AHBS were checked by the cytotoxicity test, inhibition test of EAC-rosetting and inhibition of PWM responses. Raji cells of Burkitt's lymphoma originating from B-cells and acknowledged as non-immunoglobulin bearing on the cell surface were stained with AHBS according to the immunofluorescent technique. ATOS showed a higher cytotoxic titer against peripheral B-cells and inhibited EAC-rosetting stronger than ASPS did. On the other hand, macrophages in peripheral blood, Kupffer cells in the liver and certain cells of the thymus-medulla were stained with ASPA, but not with ATOS, even after intensively absorbing ASPS with thymocytes.     

Large-scale purification of IgM from human sera

for the preparation of gram amounts of IgM from human sera sedimentation at 100,000 g or treatment with ZnSO4 of the redissolved "euglobulin"-precipitate was compared to direct precipitation from the clarified serum by boric acid. Three alternative large scale purification procedures were developed, leading to an IgM-sample characterized as pure by various criteria. Inclusion of protein A chromatography proved to enhance the yield very considerably.     

Immunosuppressive activity of heterologous antimacrophage sera.

Antisera against rat macrophages were raised in rabbits and tested individually, serologically and in vivo, by injecting 1.5 ml/100 g into LEW rats 1 and 4 days following a graft of CDF rat skin. 1. Erythrocyte absorption reduced the mean lymphocytotoxic titer of antimacrophage sera from 1:16 to 1:1, but yielded strongly immunosuppressive sera. They extended the graft survival time from the normal rate of 11-14 days up to 217 days. 2. Additional absorption with lymphocytes reduced this activity significantly, but still yielded very active sera (graft survival up to 83 days). 3. After the procedure for serologically exhaustive absorption was repeated, an in vivo control for exhaustive absorption of anti-lymphocyte antibodies was performed. The results showed that the double-absorbed sera did not exhibit reduced immunosuppressive activity. 4. The above activity was found in 9/16 antisera. Seven antisera were inactive in vivo, though they showed similar in vitro activity with respect to their toxic titers against macrophages. These results confirm and extend our earlier functional and morphological studies on AMS. They are discussed in relationship to the controversial data from literature.     

Stability of vitamin A in frozen sera

We compared values for vitamin A measured in fresh sera with values obtained after storage at -20 degrees C for five to eight years. Loss of vitamin A from long-stored sera during the extraction step was eliminated by adding ascorbic acid to the extraction solvent, ethanol. Retinol-binding protein was also measured in the stored sera. Not only did vitamin A values remain stable during the years of storage, but also the correlation between concentrations of vitamin A and retinol-binding protein in the stored sera was typical of that observed with fresh sera.