Electron microscopic studies of experimental nephritis with ferritin-conjugated antibody. The basement membranes and cisternae of visceral epithelial cells in nephritic rat glomeruli.

Ferritin-conjugated antibody has been used to identify by electron microscopy the sites at which nephrotoxic globulins localize in rat kidney during acute experimental glomerulonephritis. Antibody was concentrated in the glomerular basement membrane and in basement membrane-like material contained in distended cisternae of the endoplasmic reticulum. These data confirm and amplify, at the ultrastructural level, the results of studies obtained with the fluorescent antibody technique, and are consistent with the hypothesis that the cisternae and capillary basement membrane possess common proteins.