Fuzzy cluster for analysis of the relationship between the structure of cephalosporins and immune cross-reaction

Six parameters (molecular negentropy, acidic group number, basic group number, proton donor group number, proton acceptor group number, and a ratio of C atomic group number to total atomic group number) for characterizing the structure of an antibody combining site in a R1 chain of cephalosporins were selected. Although 12 parameters characterized the site A and site B in a R1 chain were used in fuzzy cluster, Fischer weighting ratio (Fi) indicated that only 5 parameters, 4 of them characterized the structure of site A, play an important part in the cluster. Therefore it was speculated that the site A was the major combining site in the antigen-antibody interaction. According to the similarity of the R1 chains, cephalosporins could be clustered into 4 groups among which less cross-reaction took place. Using the "relative Hamming distance" of the R1 chains for description of their similarity, we found that the intensity of the cross-reaction assayed by immune tests had a close correlation with the "relative Hamming distance", so the distance was used for prediction of the intensity of the cross-reaction of cephalosporins.