Action of long-chain polymers on kidney juxtaglomerular cells and connective tissue mast cells.

E since the kidney has been implicated as a major factor in the genesis of hypertension, search for morphologic alterations which could account for this relationship has been intensive. However, Castelman, Smithwick, and Palmer, who published, in 1941, the results of renal biopsies in 100 cases of hypertension, were unable to detect any specific abnormality except changes in blood vessels similar to those observed in other organs (intimal hyaliuization, medial hypertrophy, endothelial hyperplasia). Other clinicopathologic studies have been equally nonrevealing. The discovery by Ruyter, in 1925, of granular cells around the preglomerular artery of the kidney, juxtaglomerular cells (J-G cells fig. 1), and the production of renal hypertension by clamping of the renal artery or by constriction of the kidney by means of cellophane wrapping, furnished impetus for a great number of researches which extended over a period of 30 years and gave rise to a voluminous literature. One type of investigation which attracted considerable attention had to do with morphologic changes of the J-G cells. The studies of Goormaghtigh, Elaut, Donihue and Candon, Bohle, and the more recent contributions of Hartroft and Hartroft and Tobian have attempted to establish a link between the stages of granulations of these cells and hypertension in man and experimental animals.