Experimental model of chronic serum sickness. Relationships between proteinuria, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and glomerular and extraglomerular renal pathology.

The evolution of proteinuria in rabbits with experimentally induced chronic serum sickness was followed up longitudinally by analytical and quantitative assays. The results suggest that sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) is a more sensitive index of kidney malfunction than are total-protein assays or the quantitation of albumin and lysozyme. In some rabbits that showed abnormal proteinuria by SDS-PAGE, no histologic evidence of pathologic damage or of deposition of immune complexes in the kidneys was found. This suggests that SDS-PAGE may detect functional alterations at early stages of kidney damage when the lesions are either undetectable or reversible. In one rabbit that was killed after normalization of the proteinuria, immunofluorescence tests indicated deposition of C3, IgG, and fibrinogen, but there was no histologic evidence of kidney damage.