著者

片桐 千明

出版者

社団法人日本動物学会

雑誌

動物学雑誌 (ISSN:00445118)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.76, no.3, pp.91-95, 1967-03-15

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In order to characterize the antigenic property of anuran egg-jellies in relation to their role in fertilization, rabbit antisera were produced against oviducal homogenates and egg-jellies of Bufo bufo formosus and Rana chensinensis. Agar-gel diffusion analyses in combination with egg-jelly and several tissue antigens showed that the Bufo jelly contains at least five separate antigenic components, of which three are specific to the jelly and the remaining two are shared with the tissue extracts of the homologous species (Figs. 1-4). Besides these five components, oviducal antigen produces another three precipitation bands, two of which are continuous with several kinds of tissues used, but not with jelly (Figs. 1 and 2). Reactions of anti-Bufo jelly sera with heterologous egg-jellies proved the absence of antigenic determinants reactive with either Hyla or four species of Rana (Fig. 5). On the other hand, egg-jelly of R. chensinensis contains six antigenic components. Of these, one or two components are shared with another species of Rana, but not with Bufo and Hyla (Fig. 6). From the discussion, with particular emphasis on the failure of correlation between the inter-specific relationship of egg-jelly antigens and the fertilizing capacity of sperm evoked by the heterologous egg-jellies (cf. Katagiri, 1996b; 1967), the conclusion was that the antigenic determinants of egg-jellies as identified in the present study are of minor importance in the fertilization process.