IMMUNOCHEMICAL STUDIES ON HUMAN SEMINAL PLASMA II. THE MAJOR ANTIGENS AND THEIR FRACTIONATION

Summary. It was found that human seminal plasma contained a large number of antigenic components as tested with selected antiserum bleedings from rabbits that had been intensively immunized with pooled seminal plasma. Gel diffusion experiments revealed a total of eight to eleven distinctive components, although several experiments had to be considered jointly to achieve unambiguous resolution. These experi-ments included variations in the concentration of the seminal plasma and the spacings between the wells. Immuno-electrophoresis gave a clearer resolution. A characteristic pattern of twelve components was seen, consisting of four major mobility groups ofantigens with high diffusion rates and two other mobility groups with low diffusion rates. These were termed A, B1, B2, C1, C2, C3, D1, D2, E1, E2, F1 and F2. It was further shown that serum albumin was one of the components in seminal plasma (component A). It was also found that the predominant electrophoretic component could be isolated by starch block electrophoresis, and that this corres-ponded to component C2 of the immuno-electrophoretic pattern