Strong bactericidal effects of normal guinea pig and human sera against the Salmonella minnesota S form and an R form (Re) depend on Ca2+, complement component C4, and subcomponent C1q of complement component C1. Therefore, the interaction of C1 and C1q with these forms was investigated. The bacteria directly bound subcomponent C1q, as demonstrated by fixation and transfer tests and by fluorescent methods. Binding of macromolecular C1 was shown by fixation and transfer tests and by C4 consumption. C1 fixation and transfer tests provide evidence that C1 and C1q were bound more tightly to the Re form than to the S form. At physiological ionic strength, all cell-bound molecules were released from the S form, whereas at least 60% remained on the cell surface of the Re form. The Re form showed another binding behavior for C1: preincubation of bacteria with purified C1q totally prevented C1 uptake by the S form, compared to only 10% inhibition of the uptake by the Re form. Therefore, we conclude that macromolecular C1 is bound differently by the S form than by the Re form. The analysis of five other core-deficient mutants of S. minnesota (Ra, Rb, Rc, Rd1, and Rd2) revealed that the difference could be explained by a deficiency of the O-specific polysaccharide. In contrast, all the C1q bound to Ra, Rb, and Rc mutants was detectable by the transfer test. Therefore, we postulate that binding of macromolecular C1 to these mutants must be due to an additional C1 subcomponent besides C1q.