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Infect Immun. 1971 August; 4(2): 116-125
Copyright © 1971 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Characterization of Antigens from the Yeast Phase of Histoplasma capsulatum

¹ Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Public Health, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94102
² Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90024

ABSTRACT

Preliminary studies established methods for obtaining maximum yields of viable cells. Liquid shaken cultures of Histoplasma capsulatum provided a maximum of 4 x 10⁸ to 5 x 10⁸ cells/ml regardless of the inoculum size. Under optimum conditions, cells were viable (90 to 95%) for 168 to 240 hr. Generation times ranged from 7.52 to 8.36 hr. Immunodiffusion, immunoelectrophoresis, and ultracentrifugation studies on phenol and ethylenediamine extracts of intact cells and cell walls revealed the presence of two components in the ethylenediamine extracts and three in the phenol preparations. The ethylenediamine extracts from intact cells and cell walls seemed to be identical although one of the components was more abundant in cell walls. Mice injected intraperitoneally with intact cells or cell walls were protected against intravenous challenge with H. capsulatum. Among the extracts, the water-soluble ethylenediamine extract from cell walls was most immunogenic. The other extracts gave only a light protection or none at all. Intact cells and cell walls were slightly toxic to mice. Two of the extracts were toxic when incorporated into Freund's complete adjuvant.