A scanning electron microscope study of the glomerulus of normal and nephritic rabbits

The glomerulus of normal and Masugi-nephritic rabbits was studied by scanning electron microscopy. The fundamental structure of the podocyte was essentially the same as that of rats and man. It was characteristic in rabbits that broad cytoplasmic sheets were frequently extended from the cell bodies, which might correspond to “podocytic membrane (Elias)” seen in transmission electron microscopy. In Masugi nephritis of rabbits the podocytes revealed increase in number, irregular arrangement and atrophy of the cytoplasmic processes, and increase of microprojections, which were assumed to be secondary reactions to proliferative glomerulonephritis. The terminal processes were preserved in large parts of glomeruli, although they were irregularly either atrophied or swollen.