Livin’ la Villi Loca
You may think of the small intestine as a smooth tube that winds its way through your abdomen. But if you were to look really closely at the inside of the intestine, you would see that it is lined with thousands of tiny fingerlike bumps that are designed to increase the surface area of the intestine’s inner wall. These bumps are called villi, and they play an important role in absorbing nutrients into your bloodstream to keep you healthy.
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DownloadLivin’ la Villi Loca
You may think of the small intestine as a smooth tube that winds its way through your abdomen. But if you were to look really closely at the inside of the intestine, you would see that it is lined with thousands of tiny fingerlike bumps that are designed to increase the surface area of the intestine’s inner wall. These bumps are called villi, and they play an important role in absorbing nutrients into your bloodstream to keep you healthy.
What am I looking at?
This image shows vertical slices, from top to bottom, through several villi from the small intestine of a mouse. The outer membranes of the intestinal villi are represented by solid-colored lines (1). The cells within the villi are represented by multicolored imperfect circles (2).
Click on the right arrow to see a cross section through a single villus.
Biology in the background
The small intestine – in mice and humans alike – is responsible for digesting the food we eat and absorbing its nutrients into the bloodstream to be distributed to the rest of the body. Nutrients are absorbed through a membrane on the inside of the intestinal wall. Villi can absorb nutrients through their tops, sides, and bases, dramatically increasing the area dedicated to nutrient absorption.
In a human, each villus is about 1 millimeter long, or roughly 13 times the width of a human hair.
Technique
These images were created using fluorescence microscopy.
Amy Engevik, Medical University of South Carolina