Publication

Abstract : Penicillins are B-lactam antibiotics widely used in clinical practice and they induce many allergic reactions, which can beeither cellular or humoral. B-lactams are able to interact covalently with serum proteins, forming immunogenic conjugatesand their metabolism can provoke a number of different antigenic determinants that have been implicated in the specificityof the immunological response. In the present study, Ampicillin Sodium (17.5mg/kg), a semi-synthetic amino penicillin wasused to study its effect on immune response by measuring different immune parameters like total serum protein concentration,passive haemagglutination, total leucocyte and total lymphocyte count. The antigen used was sheep RBC. It wasobserved that there was no significant change in total serum protein content and antibody titre. Ampicillin caused a slightincrease in total leukocyte count and slight decrease in total lymphocyte count. It can be concluded that Ampicillin doesnot adversely affect the specific immune response in normal rabbits