Journal of Morphology and Anatomy

Human kidney is a basic and very important organ of the body. It has many important function inside the human body, among all work, filtration of blood and urine formations are the major important functions. Kidney forms the urinary system and it is also known as the major excretory organ of human body. The anatomical development of human kidney undergoing several process of development from the antenatal life till the end, and a brief description about kidney anatomy in several stages of life was discussed here in this review.

In order to find and prevent the unknown pathologies of kidneys in infants, there is a necessity to examine the fetal growth of kidneys in utero. As a part of this a study was conducted, 50 dead fetuses were collected among which 30 are male and 20 are female. The weight, length, breath of their kidneys is calculated with related to their each gestational age. It was found that male fetal kidneys increased in size and weighed more than female. The morphological parameters of fetal kidneys are tabulated or better understanding. Bilateral Renal agenesis and poly cystic kidney disease are the most common renal anomalies in new born infants. It is difficult to treat these conditions and lot of infants ended up with death. We concluded that, decrease or increase in fetal kidney dimensions in utero, may have various fatal pathologies in infants after birth.

Epithelial tissues make up most organs in the body and perform various functions like protection, excretion, secretion etc. The epithelial tissues consist of different cell type like squamous, cuboidal, glandular and columnar depending on the organ and function. These cells can be of single or multiple layers. The epithelial cells are tightly packed together and connected by junctional complexes. They are tight junctions, adherens junctions, gap junctions, desmosomes and hemi desmosomes. These junctional complexes are made up of trans-membrane proteins that form homo or hetero complexes. The proteins expressed at the cell-cell junctions act as binding docks for various adaptor molecules at their c-terminus and there regulate cell signaling. Some junctional molecules connect to cell cytoskeleton and basement membrane and maintain epithelial integrity, cell polarity and epithelial differentiation. Any dysregulation of cell-cell junctional molecules due to pathogenic conditions results in loss of epithelial integrity and differentiation leading the cells to undergo EMT.

During routine dissection of an approximately 50-year-old female cadaver for training the Master students of the Anatomical Sciences at school medicine of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, we came across a variation in branching pattern of right axillary artery. One branch is separated from the Axillary artery for Pectoralis minor muscle. Lateral thoracic artery has been separated from the Axillary artery along with the subscapular artery through a common trunk and continues as a thoracodorsal artery in parallel to long thoracic nerve.