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Immunizing injections of rat liver and kidney mitochondrial fractions were administered to rabbits, and the effects of injecting the antisera into rats were investigated. Rats receiving antiserum to rat liver mitochondria showed impaired clearance of sulphobromphthalein, and developed hepatic fibrosis which in one animal progressed to cirrhosis. There was no increase in albuminuria and the kidneys showed no histological differences from those of control rats receiving normal rabbit serum. Renal changes were virtually confined to rats receiving antiserum to rat kidney mitochondria : these animals excreted increased amounts of protein and showed increased cellularity of the glomeruli, tubular casts and hydropic changes in the tubular epithelium. The significance of these findings is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rat organ homogenates were fractionated by differential centrifugation and the fractions were incorporated into incomplete Freund's adjuvant and administered intramuscularly to rabbits. Gel-diffusion precipitin and complement-fixation tests showed the development of antibodies which reacted with rat, and in lower titres with rabbit organ fractions. The rabbit antisera to liver and kidney fractions reacted with preparations of both these organs, and antisera to liver fractions (nuclei, mitochondria and supernate) reacted with all three of these preparations. Hepatic lesions were observed in those animals which developed anti-bodies shown capable of reacting in vitro with liver tissue constituents. These changes were most pronounced in rabbits immunized with liver mitochondria, in which inflammatory changes and fibrosis were related to the biliary ductules, and in those immunized with liver nuclear or kidney mitochondrial fractions, in which the changes appeared mainly around the larger interlobular hepatic ducts. Changes occurred also in the kidneys, but were observed also in control animals injected with normal rat serum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]