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There are situations in which direct observation of the attachment of antibody molecules may be the simplest method of detecting antigen-antibody reactions. Applied to the study of the sex pili determined by a number of transmissible bacterial plasmids, the method has distinguished four serotypes in the F-like class and two in the I-like class. Antibody was usually attached haphazardly to the pili; however, in a few cases a regular periodicity could be observed. When few antibody molecules were attached, they could frequently be individually resolved and in certain antibody-pilus combinations large antibody molecules, tentatively identified as IgM, could be seen to predominate.
Lawn et al. (1970) studied this question.