This single center study was done to define the precise specificities and molecular properties of IgG antibodies in IgA nephropathy. Investigators EBV immortalized IgG secreting lymphocytes from remnant frozen kidney-biopsy specimens from 34 patients with IgA nephropathy and found that the secreted IgG formed immune complexes with galactose deficient IgA1 in a glycan dependent manner. They also developed a dot blot assay for the glycan specific IgG that differentiated patient with IgAN from healthy and disease controls 88% specificity and 95 % sensitivity and found that elevated levels of this antibody in the sera of patients with IgAN correlated with proteinuria.
