Antilaminin antibodies have been shown to bind to laminin within the glomerular basement membrane (GBM) and mesangium of experimental animals but have induced little or no glomerular injury. We used a sheep antiserum to murine Englebreth-Holm-Swarm sarcoma laminin (sheep antilaminin) to further study the potential of antilaminin antibodies to cause glomerular injury. Intravenous injections of sheep antilaminin into rats produced intense linear GBM deposits of sheep IgG but consistently failed to induce heterologous phase proteinuria as previously shown. In addition, no autologous phase injury appeared even after preimmunization with sheep IgG (N = 4) or passive administration of rat anti-sheep IgG (N = 3) (mean urine protein less than 4 mg/24 hours up to 16 days). GBM deposits of rat C3 in vivo were absent despite the ability of both sheep antilaminin and rat anti-sheep IgG to fix human and rat C3 in vitro as determined by an indirect immunofluorescent assay. In contrast, when kidneys containing sheep antilaminin were transplanted into naive recipients that were passively immunized with rat anti-sheep IgG, severe proteinuria occurred (range 7 to 109 mg/24 hours on day 2; 49 to 350 mg/24 hours on day 5 posttransplantation) in association with glomerular deposition of C3. Histological evaluation at day 5 showed a severe proliferative glomerulonephritis with infiltrating polymorphonuclear and mononuclear leukocytes. Electron microscopy showed endothelial and epithelial cell detachment from the GBM and inflammatory cell adherence to denuded GBM. Epithelial foot process effacement and cytoplasmic absorption droplets were also noted. Identical kidneys transplanted into nonimmunized recipients or immunized recipients depleted of complement had significantly less (p less than 0.05) proteinuria (nonimmunized: 5 to 18 mg/24 hours on day 2, 4 to 9 mg/24 hours on day 5; complement-depleted: 6 to 13 mg/24 hours on day 2, 4 to 27 mg/24 hours on day 5) and no glomerular complement fixation was seen in these animals. Thus, severe glomerular injury can be induced by a focused, amplified, complement-dependent immune attack on glomerular laminin. In contrast, the widespread distribution of laminin and antilaminin probably dilutes the total glomerular immune reaction and precludes effective complement fixation and glomerular injury during the autologous phase in nontransplanted kidneys. A similar explanation might account for the lack of glomerular injury in previous studies that utilized antisera to known GBM constituents.