Abstract
Passive protection mediated by antibodies directed against Bacillus anthracis inactivated spores has been suggested by Enkhtuya et al. (2006) in a recent paper in this journal. In our view, the main conclusions drawn in this article are overstatements in regard to the data presented and to the currently published studies, and thus, are misleading.
1. The authors report as data not shown that rabbit IgG directed against anti-formaldehyde inactivated (FIS) B. anthracis spores do not cross-react with spores of Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis. This is surprising as spore surface components of B. anthracis, B. cereus and B. thuringiensis share common epitopes. In the course of studies on spore surface structures, we and others have repeatedly encountered difficulties in obtaining B. anthracis spore-specific antibodies; a high level of cross-reactivity is consistently observed with most strains of B. cereus (for example Philips et al., 1983; Stopa, 2000; Sylvestre, 2003). This point is well known to those working on specific detection of spores of B. anthracis relative to B. cereus and B. thuringiensis. Indeed this is why the design of a means for rapid and specific detection of B. anthracis spores is still one of the aims of current bioterrorism countermeasure programmes.