Supernumerary ossicles (or Wormian bones) of the cranial vault are formations associated with insufficient rate of suture closure, and regarded as "epigenetic" and "hypostotic" traits. These bones rest along sutures and/or fill fontanelles of the neonatal skull. In this autoptic report of a 66-year-old Caucasian woman, a peculiar supernumerary bone is described, unusual size and shape, filling completely the bregmatic fontanelle. The skull was CT-scanned through coronal sections at 80 kV and 60 mA, with a slice thickness of 1.0 mm and a resolution of 0.35 mm/pixel. Segmentation and 3D rendering were computed using MIMICS 7.0 (digital endocast). The bone was pentagonal and remarkably large, more on the exocranial surface than on the endocranial one, involving both tables and diploe of the vault. This feature might represent a wedge to completion of the vault architecture. Considering the functional and structural matrix of cranial morphogenesis, this case displays the possibility of discrete diversification of the ossification centres, as well as the relative stability of the structural skull matrix in response to discrete changes.

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On treatment with collagenase, brain microvessels, together with several protein components, lose some enzymatic activities such as alkaline phosphatase and gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase, whereas no change occurs in the activities of 5'-nucleotidase and glutamine synthetase. The energy-requiring "A-system" of polar neutral amino acid transport is also severely inactivated, whereas the L-system for the facilitated exchange of branched chain and aromatic amino acids is preserved. In the collagenase-digested microvessels, this leads to loss of the transtimulation effect of glutamine on the transport of large neutral amino acids, because such transtimulation is due to a cooperation between the A- and L-systems. By contrast, NH4+ maintains (and even enhances) its ability to stimulate the L-system of amino acid transport, presumably through glutamine synthesis within the endothelial cells.

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The tubule-like cells (TLC) are present also in the parietal layer of the Bowman's capsule of the renal corpuscles in normal female mice kidney. These cells are morphologically similar to the cells of the proximal convoluted tubule. Further, significant variations of the TLC were present according to the phase of the sexual cycle.