Low cost production and purification of polyclonal antibodies to staphylococcal enterotoxin A

An immunization scheme for production of antiserum to staphylococcal entero toxin A (SEA) is proposed. The reference method of Robbins and Bergdoll was modified to reduce the number of doses and the amount of toxin used per an imal. The best immunization scheme used injections in days 0, 8, 24, 59, 62 and 67. The amount of toxin at each injection was 5, 6, 20, 50, 100 and 20 0 mu g, respectively. The total amount of toxin was 381 mu g, which corresp onded to a reduction of 107 mu g in the amount of toxin for each animal whe n compared to the reference method. The average antiserum titer using the O ptimum Sensitivity Plate - OSP was 1:60 and using ELISA the titer was 1:100 .000. The lack of cross-reactivity with other staphylococcal enterotoxins i ndicated high specificity of the antibody to SEA. The proposed immunization scheme was adequate to produce specific SEA antisera, with high titers and the aditional advantage of reducing the amount of purified SEA required fo r immunization.