The role of the wax of the tubercle bacillus in establishing delayed hypersensitivity, hypersensitivity to a protein antigen, egg albumin.

Guinea pigs sensitized with egg albumin along with the purified wax fraction of the human tubercle bacillus respond with delayed hypersensitive reactivity to the protein antigen. Previous publications have reported a similar activity of the wax with respect to tuberculoprotein and picryl chloride. The effect is not referable to an ordinary adjuvant activity of the bacillary wax, since antibody titers are not increased in animals which receive it, and since a known adjuvant, water-in-oil emulsion, has no effect with respect to the induction of delayed hypersensitivity. This report further extends the rôle of the tubercle bacillary wax in the induction of delayed hypersensitive states.