Relationship between anti-glycolipid antibodies and alternative complement pathway in pediatric renal glomerular diseases

It has been recently found that glycolipids and glycoproteins having sialic acids inhibit the activation of alternative complement pathway (ACP) in their own membranes. When the author measured IgG and IgM antibody titers in sera of 75 children suffering from renal glomerular diseases by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with glycolipid antigens, such as fucosyl GM1 (FucGM1), asialo GM1(GA1) and globoside selective and significant increase in the titer of anti-FucGM1 (IgG) antibody was found in many ofthem. Also, the C3 breakdown index (=C3d/C3c) as an indicator of ACP activation in sera of the patients (0.72±0.52), was significantly differed from those of normal control subjects (0.27±0.06). Especially sera of children with mesangial proliferative glomer ulonephritis and IgA nephropathy exhibited higher indexes than those of control (p