Tissue deposition of immune complexes in mice receiving daily injections of bovine serum albumin.

The daily intraperitoneal injection of 0.3 mg of 0.5 mg BSA into preimmunized mice produced chronic serum sickness (CSS) within several weeks. The glomerulonephritis which developed was characterized in most cases (74%) by the deposition of immune complexes in the glomerular capillary wall. Associated pathological changes included crescent formation, hypercellularity, capillary occlusion and exudative and degenerative lesions in the glomeruli. In other animals (26%) a less severe renal disease developed in which immune complex deposition and histological abnormalities were limited to the glomerular mesangium. Mice with membranoproliferative immune complex glomerulonephritis had deposits of immune complexes in many other organs besides the kidney. A model of CSS in mice opens the possibility of studying the cellular basis of the immune response and genetic determinants in experimentally induced systemic immune complex disease.