Juvenile renal disease in the Doberman Pinscher: ultrastructural changes of the glomerular basement membrane.

Ten cases of juvenile renal disease in Doberman Pinschers were examined by light microscopy and 8 of them additionally by electron microscopy. Two distinct basic ultrastructural lesions of the glomerular basement membrane (GBM) were observed. One is characterized by lamellation of the lamina densa with intramembranous focal areas of lucency containing electron-dense particles, the second by diffuse attenuation of the lamina densa with intramembranous and/or subendothelial deposition of matrix entrapping cross-banded fibres (collagen). Based on similar ultrastructural changes in other hereditary nephropathies in man and dogs, a metabolic or biochemical basis for the structural lesions is suspected.