Antigenicity of human renal tubular brush border membrane has been well demonstrated in patients with membranous nephropathy and other type of glomerulonephritis. In these patients, renal tubular brush border antigen-antibody complexes deposit in glomeruli and the circulating immune complexes which consist of brush border antigen and the corresponding autoantibody are found in some of these patients.
The brush border antigen was solubilized from insoluble tubular segments by pronase digestion and isolated from the pronase-treated material by gel-filtration and disc-electrophoresis. The isolated brush border antigen was a glycoprotein with S20w value of 8. 4. The common antigen with brush border antigen distributed through the various organs, including liver, lung, intestine, etc. Some amount of antigen was also found in the blood and urine from healthy individuals and rats. The antigen located mainly at the sites with function of excretion or absorption in these organs.
When the brush border antigen isolated from rat kidney was emulsified with complete adjuvant and injected into rats, the circulating antibody against brush border antigen appeared 7-10 days after the injection and typical membranous nephropathy with subepithelial immune deposits of the capillary walls, developed 6-10 weeks after the injection.
These results obtained from the investigations of human and experimental glomerulonephritis confirm the auto-antigenicity of renal tubular brush border membrane.

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Recently plasmapheresis has been collecting a great interest from medical staffs who are treating patients with immunological disorders and renal insufficiency.
Therapeutic plasmapheresis is a relatively new technic by which plasma fraction of blood, supposedly containing pathogenetic components, is removed and replaced with substitution fluid while whole blood cells are left untouched. Thereby, even large molecules in plasma such as antibodies and immune complexes which are not removed by conventional blood purification modalities can be removed by plasmapheresis.
Until 2 to 3 years ago, plasmapheresis had been performed using bulky and expensive centrifuges. Technical development in membrane brought about by dialyzer production has enabled plasma to be directly separated from whole blood during extracorporeal circulation.
From presently available informations, pore size suitable for plasma separation without marked blood cell leakage is in an order of 0.1 micron, namely 0.2 to 0.5 microns, with cellulose diacetate, polypropylene or polyvinylalchol membrane. These membranes are supplied in a hollow fiber type.
Filtration properties of membrane separators are reported as follows :
1. Plasma flux
a) Membrane permeability ; Plasma flux is determined by membrane permeability proper to membrane material.
b) Transmembrane pressure ; Plasma flux is increased with an increment in transmembrane pressure within a certain limit, and reaches to a plateau over this limit.
Excessive transmembrane pressure brings forth break-out of red blood cells (hemolysis).
c) Time course ; Plasma flux decreases with a lapse of time.
2. Solute transfer a) Membrane permeability ; Solute transfer is determined by membrane permeability proper to membrane material. Solute transfer decreases as a molecular size of solute increases.
b) Time course ; Solute transfer decreases with time.

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Solutes permeabilities of blend membranes of poly (vinyl alcohol) [PVA] with cyanoethylated poly (vinyl alcohol) [CPVA] were studied. Effects of amounts of lithium chloride added and ratios of CPVA/PVA in membranes on water and solutes permeabilities were examined. Consequently, the optimum condition to prepare assymmetric crosslinking membrane was determined. Membrane containing 30% CPVA had good mechanical property and water permeability and rejected solutes of molecular weights above 10000.

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