The non-collagenous domains of the alpha 3 and 4 chains of type IV collagen and their relationship to the Goodpasture antigen

Abstract

The Goodpasture antigen is the target recognized by anti-glomerular basement membrane (GBM) antibodies in anti-GBM disease or Goodpasture's syndrome. This structure is present in all normal GBM, but when serum containing anti-GBM antibodies is used to examine renal tissue from most males with classical Alport's syndrome, the Goodpasture antigen appears to be missing. The nature of the Goodpasture antigen is uncertain although it has been putatively and controversially localized to the non-collagenous domain of a novel type IV collagen chain (alpha 3) by one group, and a short peptide sequence has been published (M2). We have performed several experiments to determine whether M2 represents th..