Two fast-moving fetal hemoglobin variants were discovered in hematologically normal newborn babies; the first originated in the United Arab Emirates and the second in France. The structural study, carried out by miniaturized techniques of protein chemistry, showed that these two mutations affected the same residue of the G gamma chain, the lysine at position 59(E3) was replaced by glutamic acid in Hb F-Emirates, and by glutamine in Hb F-Sacromonte.
Giving propyl-thiouracil to pregnant rats during the 5 days preceding term (50 mg per day), results in the following effects in the foetuses:
increase of foetal calcaemia without concomitant change in maternal calcaemia; increase of the »average cellular surface« and of the diameter of the nuclei of the parathyroid cells; decrease of the growth of the parathyroid glands which results at term in a smaller volume of these glands as compared with control foetuses.
The significance of these changes is discussed. They seem to correspond to an endocrine hyperfunctioning of the foetal parathyroids. Hypercalcaemia was also observed in rat foetuses in which thyroid functioning was depressed by partial decapitation (hypophysectomy).
Forskolin, a diterpen stimulating the adenylcyclase induces in vitro an accumulation of cAMP in thyroid glands explanted from 17 day-old rat fetuses. Thyroid glands from 15 day-old fetuses exposed to forskolin exhibit, within 24 hr, an active folliculogenesis and 125I fixation in follicular cavities. The results indicate that cAMP probably activates the onset of both morphological and physiological maturation in the fetal rat thyroid.
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