Tissue antigens in normal and pathologic urine samples: A review

The urine of healthy man and experimental animals contains small amounts of proteins. Protein excretion increases in many disease states. Most urinary proteins derive from the plasma. Researchers' interests and endeavors, however, have increasingly focused during the past decade on a variety of nonplasma urinary proteins emanating from tissues and organs. They do not pertain to and are immunochemically not identical with the plasma proteins proper [1]. They are referred to as “tissue antigens” or “tissue constituents” because they are serologically detected and immunohistologically localized with antitissue sera. Tissue antigens are either organ specific or originate in tissues widely distributed in the organism, for example, in the basement membranes and collagen