A Glycoprotein That Induces Nephrotoxic Antibody: Its Isolation and Purification from Rat Glomerular Basement Membrane

Abstract

The water-soluble antigen that induces nephrotoxic antiserum was isolated and purified from rat glomerular basement membrane. The highly purified antigen, Fr-αS, obtained from TR-GBM, had the character of a glycoprotein which gave a single symmetric sedimentation boundary line in the analytical ultracentrifuge (s_20,w = 1.02 S). The yield of Fr-αS was only 5.5 mg (dry weight) from 390 mg of TR-GBM, starting with 3.0 kg (wet weight) of perfused renal cortex homogenate. Rats that received a single injection of antiserum against rat Fr-αS showed distinct clinical and histologic changes of typical proliferative glomerulonephritis, which were strikingly similar to the various stages of glomerulonephritis in man.