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Bronchial goblet cell
Make it clearer
The air you breathe does not arrive clean. It carries dust, smoke and microbes, and the bronchus, one of the tubes that carry air down into the lung, does not simply let it through. Its inner surface is lined with cells, and among them are some called goblet cells, named for their cup shape. Their job is to make mucus and release it into the tube.
That mucus is not a nuisance but your first defense. Whatever comes in with the air sticks to it, the same way dirt sticks to a piece of tape. And so that trapped dirt does not settle in the lung, that lining is ciliated: it has cilia, tiny hairs that all beat in the same direction, like a conveyor belt pushing the mucus up and out until it leaves the body. Tape that traps and a belt that hauls: between them they keep the path the air takes clean.
In brief
The goblet cell is a columnar epithelial cell that secretes mucus into the airway lumen; the bronchus is lined by a ciliated pseudostratified columnar epithelium that contains goblet cells.
That mucus is the first line of defense against pathogens that enter from the environment.
Cilia move particles trapped in the mucus up and out to expel them from the body.
Mucus and cilia work like sticky tape on a conveyor belt: the mucus catches what comes in and the cilia drag it out.
Sources (1)
- NCBI Bookshelf / StatPearlsHistology, Respiratory Epithelium
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
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