The production of glomerulonephritis by immunologic methods

Abstract

1. 1. Specific antikidney, antiglomerular, or antiplacenta serum, when injected in the rat or dog, produces acute glomerulonephritis, which may be fatal within a few days, may heal, or may progress to chronic nephritis resulting in death from renal failure months or years later. Duck antirabbit-kidney serum injected in rabbits produces a similar result. 2. 2. The clinical course and pathologic lesions of this experimental disease resemble those of human nephritis. 3. 3. In the rat, high-titered specific antisera may produce a nephrotic syndrome characterized by edema, hypercholesterolemia, hypoproteinemia, and massive proteinuria. 4. 4. Between the clinical picture of acute nephritis and the onset of chronic nephritis in the rat, there may be an interval of several months during which time the animal appears normal. 5. 5. Nephritis produced in rats, rabbits, or dogs by the injection of specific duck or chicken antikidney serum often has a latent period of several days. 6. 6. Evidence has been presented that, at least in the rabbit, the onset of nephritis after a latent period is the result of a reaction between the injected antikidney foreign protein (fowl gamma globulin) attached to kidney parenchyma and the antibodies produced by the rabbit to this antigen. 7. 7. The lesions of delayed nephritis in the rabbit, rat, or dog are similar to those which occur in nephritis with no latent period. 8. 8. Evidence has been developed from chemical and histochemical studies of the glomerulus of the dog and rat which indicates that the basement membrane of the glomerulus may be the source of the antigen inciting production of the nephrotoxic antibody. 9. 9. The new immunologic and histochemical techniques which have been used in the study of experimental nephrotoxic nephritis may in the future give data on the mechanism of human nephritis.