Tissue from a non-functional kidney affected with chronic membranous glomerulosclerosis was removed at time of trnasplantation. Recipient kidney tissue and donor kidney tissue were simultaneously fixed for electron microscopy. Primary fixation was in phosphate buffered gluteraldehyde followed by infiltration in 20 and then 40% glycerol. The tissues were frozen in liquid Freon and finally in liquid nitrogen. Fracturing and replication of the etched surface was carried out in a Denton freeze-etch device. The etched surface was coated with platinum followed by carbon. These replicas were cleaned in a 50% solution of sodium hypochlorite and mounted on 400 mesh copper grids. They were examined in an Siemens Elmiskop IA. The pictures suggested that the diseased kidney had heavy deposits of an unknown substance which might account for its inoperative state at the time of surgery. Such deposits were not as apparent in light microscopy or in the standard fixation methods used for EM. This might have been due to some extraction process which removed such granular material in the dehydration steps.
Three‐year experience with the new Eurotransplant Kidney Allocation System
