Production of interleukin 1 in glomerular cell cultures from patients with rapidly progressive crescentic glomerulonephritis.

Interleukin 1 (IL-1) activity was measured in glomerular culture supernatants from 3 patients with rapidly progressive crescentic glomerulonephritis (RPGN). Macrophages were present in both capillary tufts and cellular crescents as identified by OKM1-positive cells on immunoperoxidase labelling. Glomeruli from 4 rejecting renal cadaver allografts were used as a disease control, in addition to glomeruli from a normal kidney. IL-1 activity as measured by the thymocyte proliferation assay was greater in the supernatants from cultured glomerular outgrowths of patients with crescentic GN than in those from rejected renal allografts and glomeruli isolated from the normal tissue. IL-1 production from cultured glomerular cells from patients with RPGN was detectable in the serum-free conditioned media harvested after 3 days of culture and increased in a stepwise fashion over 28 days of culture. The prominent feature of the glomerular outgrowth of the glomeruli in the RPGN patients was the presence of large numbers of macrophages, which were not present in cultured control glomeruli. These findings indicate that the immunoregulatory aberration in patients with RPGN may in part be due to IL-1 production by activated macrophages.