HUMAN SEMINAL-SPECIFIC ANTIGENS - AN IMMUNOAFFINOCHROMATOGRAPHIC APPROACH

Total antibodies of the IgG class were isolated from human female blood sera exhibiting a spermagglutinating activity. The preparation was employed in an immunoaffinochromatographic system to probe for the corresponding seminal antigens. Such an approach was selected for it allows antigens to be isolated in an efficient way, it needs a few procedural steps to give final results, and it can-be operated on a preparative scale. With this procedure, total seminal glycoproteins yielded 5 major components, as assessed by electrophoretic analysis. Immunological tests showed that the above antigens were able to absorb the spermagglutinating titre of both our and reference sera. The availability of purified seminal specific antigens could open some practical perspectives in both the diagnostic and therapeutic fields.