Forssman antigen

Briles, E.B. and Tomasz, A. (1973) Pneumococcal Forssman antigen. A choline-containing lipoteichoic acid. Journal of Biological Chemistry 248, 6394—6397. 

In early work [165] on the synthesis of the pentasaccharide (236), the azide (237) was condensed with (238) [an intermediate in the preparation of (237)]in the presence of silver perchlorate and polyvinylpyridine to give the a-linked disaccharide (239) in 60 % yield and this on acetolysis gave the disaccharide (240) which contains the potential terminal disaccharide unit of the Forssman antigen. Compound (240) was converted into the glycosyl bromide with titanium(IV) bromide under carefully controlled conditions [182] and condensed with l,6-anhydro-2,4-di-0-benzyl-D-galacto-pyranose in the presence of silver carbonate to give the potential terminal trisaccharide (241) of the Forssman antigen. 

The synthetic pentasaccharide showed similar antigenic specificity to the Forssman glycolipid but because of the absence of the lipid portion did not form a stable complex with the Forssman antibody [187],... 

Extensive purification of the glycosphingolipids present in the neutral fraction resulted in the isolation of three distinct glycolipids exhibiting Forssman antigenic activity (Table I, compounds 9,10,11). Thin-layer chromatographs of these glycolipids is illustrated in Fig. 1. Chemical analyses of the purified... 

Synthetic and Conformational Studies Related to the Antigenic Determinant of the Forssman Antigen. R. U. Lemieux and P. Hermentin, Abstr. Xth Int. Symp. on Carbohydr. Chem., Sydney, Australia, July (1980), W.l. 

Gal NAca1 -3Gal NAc[51 -3Gala1 -4Gaipi -4Glcpi -1 Cer Forssman antigen... 

The Forssman antigens may be regarded as heat-stable substances, which, when injected into rabbits, can evok,e sheep-cell hemolysins. 

A number of biologically important compounds or complexes of carbohydrates with lipides and sometimes also with proteins have been found in animal tissues (and some bacteria). The Wassermann antigens and the Forssman antigens apparently are materials of this type. The cerebrosides and gangliosides (Chapter X) might be considered to belong to this group. All appear to contain a hexosamine residue. 

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