Glomerulous from the kidney

Blue-Green Glomerulus

This cell cluster may look jumbled, but it is well organized. Called a glomerulus, it’s a cluster of cells from a kidney; it filters and processes blood to maintain proper levels of water, salt, and minerals. It also removes toxins from the blood so they can be expelled in urine.

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Glomerulous from the kidney

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Blue-Green Glomerulus

This cell cluster may look jumbled, but it is well organized. Called a glomerulus, it’s a cluster of cells from a kidney; it filters and processes blood to maintain proper levels of water, salt, and minerals. It also removes toxins from the blood so they can be expelled in urine.

What am I looking at?

This is a cross section through a human kidney, showing the cells within a single glomerulus. The light blue circles are the cell’s nuclei (1). The green represents a protein in the integrin family (2), which helps cells adhere to each other and to other tissues. The integrin protein works with another protein – shown in purple and called nephronectin (3) – to hold the cells in place.

Biology in the background

The kidneys play a key role in removing waste and toxins from the bloodstream and maintaining appropriate levels of water, salts, and minerals in the body. The glomerulus is the functional unit of the kidney. Each glomerulus has a network of tiny blood vessels called capillaries that bring blood into contact with these cells, allowing them to perform their function.

Human glomeruli vary in size but on average are about 200 micrometers wide, or roughly 2.5 times the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was taken using fluorescence microscopy.

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Contributor(s)

Lori O'Brien, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill