Murine cytomegalovirus glomerulonephritis: clinical and ultrastructural observations.

This investigation was initiated to study and correlate the clinical and ultrastructural aspects of glomerulonephritis induced in the laboratory mouse by the intraperitoneal injection of a sublethal dose of murine cytomegalovirus. An attempt was made to ascertain the pathogenesis of the glomerular changes and the resultant viremia. Murine cytomegalovirus infection caused an acute transient glomerulonephritis in young female mice of the HA/ICR strain. Mice that survived a sublethal inoculation of homogenized infected gland developed transient proteinuria and excreted tubular casts. The murine cytomegalovirus infection resulted in a glomerular lesion that was selective for the mesangial cell. After entering the mesangial cell by phagocytosis the virus replicated in the nucleus and was excreted into the channel of the mesangial matrix, with extension toward the periphery of the capillary loop and adjacent to the urinary space. Virus particles were rarely found in the glomerulus after the 5th day of infection and chronic renal disease was not observed.