Nephrotoxic serum nephritis in nude rats: the roles of host immune reactions

A description is made of renal lesions in rats induced by heterologous (rabbit) nephrotoxic serum with or without subsequent host immune reactions against it and the effects of immune reactions on the course of classical nephrotoxic serum (Masugi) nephritis are discussed. The disease was induced by injecting congenitally athymic ACI nude rats (rnu/rnu) and their normal heterozygous littermates (rnu/+) with rabbit anti-rat glomerular basement membrane (GBM) antiserum. In the autologous phase, rat IgG and immunoglobulins were localized in a linear pattern along capillary walls only in nephritic heterozygous rats. In the indirect plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay against rabbit immunoglobulins in the autologous phase, significantly more PFC could be detected in nephritic heterozygous rats than in nephritic nude rats. The nude and heterozygous rats were essentially the same with respect to the amount of urinary protein, histological change and clinical course. At least in classical nephrotoxic serum nephritis in rats, host immune reactions against GBM bound heterologous nephrotoxic serum were concluded to have no effect on the course of the disease.