A Method for Preparation of Renal Tubular Basement Membrane

A method is presented for the preparation of tubular basement membrane from renal cortex. The procedure utilizes a Polytron tissue disrupter, differential sieving, and for some species, sucrose density centrifugation. The procedure is especially useful for obtaining highly purified rabbit and bovine tubular basement membranes. Human tubular and glomerular basement membranes can be prepared with some cross contamination. The method offers the capability of rapidly generating large quantities of the basement membranes that retain the Goodpasture antigen and a TBM antigen associated with anti-TBM nephritis.