Characteristics of the serologic antibacterial response of patients with diphtheria and of bacterial carriers

: The enzyme immunoassay system for the detection of specific antibacterial antibodies to Corynebacterium diphtheriae membrane protein (mol. wt. 64 KD) has been used. The physicochemical nature of these antibacterial antibodies has been established and their quantitative characteristics have been determined. The analysis of the dynamics of the formation of antimicrobial IgG- and IgM-antibodies in diphtheria patients (on days 3-28 of the disease) has shown that by the time of convalescence the antibody level increases about 200-fold (p less than 0.0001). The possibility of using the dynamics of the formation of specific antimicrobial IgM-antibodies for the serodiagnosis of carrier state is shown, even if the increase of the level of antimicrobial IgG-antibodies is insufficient for this purpose (not more than twofold).