Proliferative and degenerative variants of structural and functional changes in the cell populations of renal glomeruli are revealed. These variants differ in the intensity of biosynthetic reactions in endotheliocytes, mesangiocytes, and parietal epitheliocytes. The degenerative variant is characterized by inhibition of RNA and DNA synthesis and ultrastructural alterations in endotheliocytes, which attests to the leading role of damage to glomerular endothelial associations in destruction of renal glomeruli.Key Words: glomerular pathology; nephrobiopsy; endothelium; radioautography; electron microscopy The leading immunological pathogenetic concept of primary glomerulopathy is based on the immunocomplex and autoimmune damage [3,11]. The damaging effect ofmononuclear leukocytes plays a role in the progress of glomerulonephritis [13]. In addition, the pronounced changes in the glomerular cells are described [9] indicating that the destructive and sclerotic processes in glomeruli are related not only to the immune reactions, but also to the state of cell populations and extracellular matrix in glomeruli [5,6,8,12,15].Because of some anatomical and physiological peculiarities (intense blood supply, complex metabolic processes, intense tubular transport, and excretion of various metabolites and toxins), the kidneys are very sensitive to damaging effect of various environmental factors [7]. The population character of renal damage is related to drug aggression, degrading qualiLaboratory of General Pathological Anatomy, Institute of Regional Pathology and Pathomorphology, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Novosibirsk ty of drinking water, and other unfavorable anthropogenic environmental factors [2], therefore the search for markers of environment-related nephropathy and development of new approach to pathogenesis of glomerular diseases are of particular importance [14].We carried out a complex pathomorphological study of glomerular cell populations during glomerular diseases documented by a complex of clinical morphological markers.
MATERIALS AND METHODSWe examined renal bioptates from 82 patients (49 men and 33 women at the age of 14-71 years). The specimens were studied by light and electron microscopy, as well as by radioautography. For light microscopy, the major part of renal bioptate was fixed in 10% neutral formalin and processed routinely. The paraffin sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin in combination with Perls' reaction. Elastic fibers were stained with Weigert resorcine-fuchsin according to 0007-4888/99/0011-1174522.00 9 K/uwer Academic/Plenum Publishers