Rabbit antibodies reacting with brush border of rodent renal tubules

The immunofluorescent staining characteristics of antibodies against rat and mouse kidney tubule brush border, produced in rabbits immunized with microsomal or mitochondrial fractions of rat kidney, were compared with those of human antibodies against mitochondria obtained from patients with biliary cirrhosis. With the rabbit antisera, brush border staining was confined to the epithelium of the proximal renal tubules while the human antimitochondrial sera stained proximal and distal tubules. Absorptions with a mitochondrial fraction prepared from rat liver inhibited the human serum activity but had no effect on brush border activity in the rabbit serum which was inhibited only by the rat kidney subcellular fractions.