Abstract
The biopsized renal tissues from two patients with membranous nephropathy were studied to evaluate the localization of IgG deposit in the glomeruli and its significance by immuno-electron microscopy using the peroxidaseRantiperoxidase complex with antihuman IgG rabbit serum. One patient was a 57-yr-old female with relapsing primary membranous nephritis and the other patient was a 38-yr-old female with lupus nephritis. In the former case, the IgG deposit was locally observed within the glomerular basement membrane and the cytoplasm of the glomerular epithelial cells along the glomerular basement membrane. The IgG deposit in the cytoplasm of the glomerular epithelial cells was not continuously located at the basement membrane where the immune deposits were observed as a high electron density. However, the IgG in the cytoplasm of the glomerular epithelial cells was continuously deposited at the basement membrane where the immune deposits were observed as a lucent electron density. These facts suggest that the immune complex have a specific affinity to the glomerular epithelial cells. In the later case, a number of small immune deposits were scattered in the lamina densa of the glomerular basement membrane with relatively regular distance, and they rarely fused with one another. These findings might be based on a specific evidence in SLE and a functional and structural singularity of the glomerular basement membrane.
