KimisMge Ishizaka - A Retrospective

摘要

When I was accepted into the Medical School of the University of Tokyo in 1944, I was expected to be a physician in the future. However, I became interested in immunochemistry when I spent a summer vacation in the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, and wished to do some basic research after graduation. My initial appointment at the National Institute of Health in Tokyo was as a research scientist in the Department of Serology. Retrospectively, I got my life-long research projects as a postdoctoral fellow of Dr. Dan H. Campbell at the California Institute of Technology in 1957-1959, studying biological activities of soluble antigen-antibody complexes. His hypothesis was that antigen-antibody complexes may have biological activities, which are lacking for either antigen or antibody alone, and that the formation of such bioactive complexes in vivo may induce anaphylactic reactions. Our studies actually proved that preformed soluble antigen-antibody complexes induced an increased permeability of guinea pig skin capillaries. Analysis of the antigen-antibody complexes revealed that the bioactive complexes contained two or more antibody molecules, while the complex composed of two antigen and one antibody molecules was inactive. The results suggested that the role of antigen for the formation of bioactive complexes is to bring two antibody molecules into close proximity.