Skip to main content
Figure 1 | Molecular Medicine

Figure 1

From: Lupus Nephritis: Enigmas, Conflicting Models and an Emerging Concept

Figure 1

Nephritogenic antibodies target chromatin exposed in glomeruli in the context of lupus nephritis as demonstrated by IEM. Nephritogenic antibodies bind chromatin fragments observed as EDSs in the GBM in murine (A-C) and human (D-F) lupus nephritis. In vivo-bound IgG antibodies are confined to EDSs present in the mesangial matrix and in the GBM in murine and human nephritis (A and D, respectively), as shown by IEM. In (A) and (D), the IgG molecules are stained with 5-nm gold particles. Their presence is confined to EDSs. In (B) and (E), the EDSs are shown to contain nicked DNA (traced by 10-nm gold particles) that colocalizes with in vivo-bound IgG (traced by 5-nm gold particles), as shown by a combination of IEM and the TUNEL assay (colocalization TUNEL IEM, (B) and (E) for murine and human nephritis, respectively). The colocalization TUNEL IEM was specific, since the assay performed in the absence of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase resulted in detection of in vivo-bound IgG (5 nm gold), but not in nicked DNA (absence of 10 nm gold, (C) and (F) for murine and human nephritis, respectively). These data show that targets for glomerular in vivo-bound IgG antibodies are observed as EDSs and contain DNA. The panels are previously unpublished images generated from the project linked to references (34) and (35) in the current article.

Back to article page