Striking decrease in parenchymal cell number associated with an increased amount of extracellular matrix are common features of renal disease progression. Since 1988, when apoptosis was first described in glomerular, it became a rational to focus attention on the possible role of apoptosis in pathogenesis, progression and regression of glomerular disease. The baseline urinary protein excretion rate, independently of the nature of the underlying disease, is the single strongest predictor of renal disease progression. In our present piece of work, we investigated the effect of proteinuria (among other clinical and laboratory parameters) on induction of apoptosis in resident glomerular cells. We recruited 40 patients with different forms of primary glomerulonephritis and 8 cases of normal renal biopsies from living kidney donors and patients with hematuria (who proved to be normal after microscopic and immunohistochemical examination). We employed TUNEL technique to detect apoptotic cells in paraffin fixed renal biopsy tissues. Our results showed statistically significant correlation between the degree of proteinuria, age, degree of hypertension and degree of renal impairment and apoptotic index. These results provided a new insight for the pathogenesis of progressive nature of proteinuric renal diseases.