How Nephritis occurs?
The glomerular capillary’s role in urine ultrafiltration creates a perfect environment for circulating immune-complexes to stick to the basement membrane via charge interaction mechanism. Circulating C1q complement binds to the glomerular immune complex deposits, and activates the classic complement pathway. An antibody called anti-C1q antibody that is found in some patients with autoimmune diseases (especially SLE), in addition to small percentage of healthy individuals, can bind to the solid C1q phase already attached to the tissue bound immune-complex. This antibody activates the complement cascade in a non-supressable way, and finally leads to tissue injury mediated by both complement membrane attack complex and the influx of inflammatory cells including neutrophils. [6] (Figure 5) Will lupus nephritis develop or not? Why renal injury occurs in some and not all the individuals suffering from SLE? Patients with SLE having anti-dsDNA but lacking anti-C1q autoantibodies are able to as
