[Relative postnatal growth of the basal regions of the cranial fossa]. / Uber das relative postnatale Wachstum der Bodenregionen der Fossae craniales.

The relative postnatal growth of the bony floor parts was calculated from previous measurements and planimetrically determined on 21 adults and 13 skulls of children. As expected 1) the percentage rise in length and breadth values was lower than that of the area values. 2) The greatest postnatal area rise (63%) was determined in the hypophyseal region. 3) The growth of the individual skull areas terminates at a variable period after birth, e.g. a) between the foramen caecum and the tuberculum sellae in the 8th year of life; the planum sphenoidale, however, grows after the 9th year of life by approx. 27%! b) In children of 8 years of age, the lateral length of the middle cranial fossa is about 98% of the adult value. c) Between the 6th year of life and adult age a length increase of 18.5% takes place (tuberculum sellae--dorsum sellae). d) In 5-year old children the lateral length of the posterior cranial fossa is 97.5%, in 8-year-olds 99.9% of the adult value. e) After the 8th year of life the breadth increase is e.g. 6.4% in the region of the anterior cranial fossa, 3.5% in the middle fossa, and 10% in the pituitary region.

Different sequences of expression of band 3, spectrin, and ankyrin during normal erythropoiesis and erythroleukemia.

Expression of the erythrocyte anion exchanger band 3, and ankyrin and spectrin, two cytoskeletal proteins of the red blood cell membrane, was studied by immunofluorescence using: 1) smears of human bone marrow from healthy donors and from a patient with erythroleukemia, 2) human red blood cell precursors grown in cell culture, and 3) murine erythroleukemia cells grown in cell culture. Double immunostaining with antibodies to band 3 in combination with spectrin or ankyrin revealed that these proteins become expressed synchronously during normal human erythropoiesis. In contrast, both murine erythroleukemia cells (induced by fibronectin and dimethyl sulfoxide to differentiate in vitro) and erythroblasts from a patient suffering from erythroleukemia displayed distinct asynchronicity in expression of these proteins, ie, ankyrin and spectrin were synthesized first, followed by band 3 at a later stage of erythroid development. After the onset of band 3 expression in human erythroleukemia cells, an increase of membrane-associated fluorescence was detectable for both ankyrin and spectrin, supporting the general view that band 3 promotes assembly of the membrane cytoskeleton. These findings indicate that the current concept of a sequential expression of spectrin/ankyrin and band 3 is valid only for erythroleukemia cells or transformed erythropoietic cell lines but does not occur in normal erythropoiesis, during which these proteins become expressed simultaneously.