ORGAN‐SPECIFIC INHIBITION OF THE IN VITRO MIGRATION OF LEUCOCYTES IN HUMAN GLOMERULONEPHRITIS

Abstract

Abstract The in vitro reactivity of peripheral leucocytes to renal parenchymatous homogenate is examined in 18 normal persons and 34 patients with nephropathia by means of a capillary tube migration technique. In patients with active glomerulonephritis the migration is inhibited if the culture medium contains a homogenate of fetal kidney. A similar inhibition is not seen with leucocytes from normal persons or patients with terminal nephropathy or pyelonephritis. In brucella hypersensitivity a specific, antigen‐induced inhibition of the in vitro migration of peripheral human leucocytes has been shown, in the same experimental system, to be a parameter of cellular hypersensitivity. The reactivity demonstrated in the present study may thus indicate that there exists in active glomerulonephritis a state of organ‐specific hypersensitivity of the cellular type directed to antigenic compounds in normal renal parenchyma.