A Glimpse into the Intestine
What would you see if you peered inside a human small intestine? Here’s a glimpse at its structure, revealing a community of cells with different functions.
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DownloadA Glimpse into the Intestine
What would you see if you peered inside a human small intestine? Here’s a glimpse at its structure, revealing a community of cells with different functions.
What am I looking at?
This is a biopsy – a sample of tissue removed from the body to examine it for disease – from the small intestine of a human. The yellow circles are mucus-producing goblet cells (1). The light blue structures are the cell membranes (2) of the many other types of cells that play supportive roles in the intestine. The pink and purple areas are beta-catenin (3), a protein that helps cells stick together.
Biology in the background
The goblet cells (in yellow) produce mucus to form a protective gel-like layer over the interior surface of the small intestine. Other cells (in blue) absorb nutrients from the interior of the intestine and are packed in closely with the goblet cells. This is a great example of how different cells with different functions can live together in close quarters.
A biopsy like this is generally very small but can be up to 17 millimeters long, or roughly two-thirds the width of a human thumbnail.
Technique
These images were taken using fluorescence microscopy.
Amy Engevik, Medical University of South Carolina