Library · Histology
Ciliated epithelium
Make it clearer
Ciliated epithelium is the sheet of cells that lines the airway from the inside, from the nose down to the bronchi.
It is called pseudostratified, which sounds worse than it is: under the microscope it looks as if it had several floors of cells, but there is really only one. Every cell touches the basement membrane, which is the floor of the tissue, and what fools the eye is that the nuclei sit at different heights.
What makes this lining special are the cilia, extremely fine filaments that project from the cell surface. Each ciliated cell carries between two and three hundred of them, and they all move in a way that pushes the mucus, with the trapped particles in it, toward the exit. It is a field of wheat swaying the same way and pushing along whatever lands on it.
As the airway branches into finer tubes, the lining changes: the cells become cuboidal and the ones without cilia take over.
In brief
From the nose to the bronchi, the airway is lined by pseudostratified ciliated columnar epithelium.
It is pseudostratified: a single layer of cells on the basement membrane, with nuclei at different heights that make it look like several layers.
Each ciliated cell carries 200 to 300 cilia, which push mucus and the trapped particles outward.
A field of wheat swaying the same way and pushing along whatever lands on it.
As the airway branches, the epithelium becomes simple cuboidal and cells without cilia predominate.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingHistology, Respiratory Epithelium, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated