Library · Histology
Colon histology
Make it clearer
The normal lining of the colon, the layer that covers it on the inside, has no villi, those projections that rise from the surface into the interior of the organ. What it has instead are crypts: straight, tube-shaped tunnels that, rather than sticking up, run down from the surface toward the bottom, like wells drilled side by side into flat ground.
Those tubes are lined by epithelium, the layer of cells that covers the surface, and two different jobs are carried out there side by side. Some are absorptive cells, the ones that absorb, and others are devoted to secreting mucus. Among the latter are the goblet cells.
In brief
Normal colonic mucosa has no villi. Instead, straight, tube-shaped crypts extend downward from the surface.
The crypt epithelium contains both absorptive cells and mucus-secreting cells such as goblet cells.
Sources (2)
- PubMed Central; chapter by Peter GreavesDigestive SystemPublished
- NCBI Bookshelf, National Library of MedicineHistology, Goblet CellsPublished
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Updated