Evaluation of various substances to prevent adsorption of tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) to glass surfaces

摘要

It is well known that a dilute tuberculin PPD solution (1 IU or 5 IU per dose) very rapidly loses its potency owing to adsorption of tuberculoprotein to the wall of the container into which it is dispensed. The amount of tuberculoprotein adsorbed per cm² of glass surface has been measured for phosphate-buffered saline over a wide pH range (pH 1 to pH 10). The maximum adsorption was found at pH 4 (0.31 μg/cm²) and the least at between pH 6 and pH 10 (0.15 μg/cm²). The rate of adsorption of tuberculoprotein to glass was not changed when the phosphate-buffered saline was replaced by borate-buffered saline. Tuberculin PPD prepared by the ammonium sulfate precipitation method, by the trichloroacetic acid precipitation method and by a combination of both methods adsorbed equally well to glass and no difference in the rate of adsorption for these tuberculoproteins was found.Forty-two substances in addition to Tween 80 were tested for their property to prevent adsorption of tuberculoprotein to glass in dilute tuberculin PPD solutions (50 IU/ml of ¹⁴C-labelled PPD). The most efficient anti-adsorption agents were found to be nonionic surfactants, some ionic surfactants and some colloidal substances; polypeptides and non-surface-active substances of low molecular weight showed little or no anti-adsorption property.The labelling of PPD with ¹⁴C has proved to be a valuable tool, particularly for long-term adsorption studies and for screening substances to be used as efficient anti-adsorption agents. These studies have permitted the selection of agents which could be added to dilute solutions of tuberculin PPD (10 IU/ml to 500 IU/ml or 0.2 μg/ml to 10 μg/ml respectively) in order to avoid loss of potency due to adsorption.