Glomerulonephritis (GN) is defined as a disease characterized by intraglomerular inflammation, with or without cellular proliferation, associated with hematuria, proteinuria, reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and hypertension. The diagnosis of kidney diseases is generally based on the results of kidney function tests like, blood urea, serum creatinine, urinary protein, etc. Complement-mediated tubular injury plays an important role in the progression of renal diseases. It has been previously reported that plasma levels of C3d significantly increase in response to accelerated C3 catabolism in certain inflammatory disorders like systemic lupus erythematosus (SEL), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and infective endocarditis. It has also been suggested that C3d measurement can help in the assessment of disease activity. However, little is known about the direct relationship between C3d and kidney function test parameters in GN patients. In this paper, the plasma levels of C3d by ELISA in 117 normal individuals and 45 patients suffering from immune complex (IC)-mediated GN were measured. The relationship between plasma C3d and parameters like blood urea, serum creatinine and urinary protein was studied by Pearson Correlation Analysis.

The plasma C3d levels were found to be significantly high in IC-mediated GN patients compared to normal healthy individuals (15.4 AU/ml vs. 8.74 AU/ml). IC patients had elevated C3d levels (76.2%) compared to normal individuals.

C3d was found to have a significant positive correlation with creatinine, blood urea and urinary protein levels. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that elevated plasma C3d levels in case of GN patients affect renal function. Futhermore, the data suggests that plasma levels of C3d can be considered as possible markers for glomerulonephritis. Diseases involving the renal glomeruli are encountered frequently, and are the most common causes of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) worldwide. Glomerulonephritis (GN) is defined as a disease characterized by intraglomerular inflammation, with or without cellular proliferation, and associated with hematuria, proteinuria, reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and hypertension.

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