CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN FECAL FLORA BY MEANS OF AN IMPROVED FLUORO-MORPHOMETRICAL METHOD

The use of polyclonal antibodies in differentiating between samples of faecal microflora derived from ten healthy volunteers was assessed. T he distribution of FITC-labelled antibodies (of the IgA, IgG and IgM i sotype) over 144 morphologically distinct subsets of faecal bacteria ( 'morphotypes') was quantified by means of digital morphometry and quan titative immunofluorescence. Furthermore, a new dataprocessing algorit hm was developed which makes objective quantitation of the antibody di stributions over the faecal morphotypes possible. The results of this study imply that the antibody binding capacity of faecal morphotypes i s a unique characteristic of faecal microflora.