squame

plural squames

1. biologyThe scale, or exopodite, of an antenna of a crustacean.
2. medicineA flake of dead skin tissue.

   EGF increased proliferation and squame formation and induced keratinization in cultured MA cells, an observation heretofore not reported in rat MA cells.

   1984, Gheorghe Stoica, In Vivo Diverse Spectrum of Neoplasms Induced in 30-day-old Rats and in Vitro Neoplastic Transformation of Rat Mammary Epithelial Cells Following a Single Pulse of N-Ethyl-N-Nitrosourea, page 113

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   They flatten further and become compacted into a dense keratinous layer known as the stratum corneum. The superficial flake-like squames are eventually cast off (desquamate).

   2009, David Weedon, Weedon's Skin Pathology, page 248

   Squames begin life as normal cells in the lower layers of the epidermis but, as they travel towards the surface, they progressively lose all recognizable contents, becoming plates of mainly keratin protein, based on a progressive deposition of protein on the intermediate filaments of the cytoskeleton.

   2011, Terence Allen, Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, page 80

3. medicineA squamous (scale-like) cell.

   Here the invading cell masses of the cancer consist of short thick squames, and the nearest approach to cell nest formation may be only a whorling of those squames in the centres of the cell masses.

   1928, Journal of the Cancer Research Committee of the University of Sydney, Volume 1, page 210

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   Second, if it is a squame, the nuclear size and chromatin pattern are determined. If the nucleus of this squame is plump and vesicular with an intact chromatin pattern, the cell is an intermediate; if it is pyknotic, shrunken, and hyperchromatic and lacks chromatin pattern, the cell is a superficial.

   1961, Edmund R. Novak, Georgeanna Seegar Jones, Novak's Textbook of Gynecology, page 766

   As the cells divide and the vaginal lining thickens, the cells nearest the lumen become nonviable and lose the characteristic appearance of a healthy cell monolayer. The misshapen, clumped cells are termed cornified. Specific cell types are superficial cells and anuclear squame cells (Fig. 2-2).

   2011, Margaret V. Root Kustritz, Clinical Canine and Feline Reproduction: Evidence-Based Answers, page 7

4. anatomyA bony plate.

   Most of the right temporal bone is well-preserved, with the exception of much of the zygoma and the upper edge of the temporal squame (Plate 8).

   1991, Phillip V. Tobias, The Skulls, Endocasts, and Teeth of Homo Habilis, page 84

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   A tapering of the fragment on its inner surface, and the pattern of branching of the middle meningeal vessel grooves, have enabled us to identify the piece as most probably part of the left temporal squame of a cranium.

   2003, South African Journal of Science - Volume 99, Issues 1-6, page 219

   Thus, the frontal fragment displays a slight concavity of the frontal squame behind glabella, a thin and flattened supra-orbital margin, and marked encroachment of the temporal lines just posterior to the supra-orbital margin.

   2007, Frederick E. Grine, Evolutionary History of the "Robust" Australopithecines, page 287