Library · Anatomy
Renal glomerulus
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The glomerulus is a tangle of capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in the body. Together with Bowman's capsule, a cup-shaped covering that wraps around it, it forms the renal corpuscle, the unit where the kidney filters blood.
What is odd is where it sits, because most capillary beds in the body are not arranged this way: the glomerulus lies between two arterioles, the finest branches an artery ends in. Blood reaches it through the incoming one, the afferent arteriole, and leaves through the outgoing one, the efferent arteriole. A tuft of capillaries with a valve at the inlet and another at the outlet.
Between the blood and what gets filtered there is a barrier. It is built to let water, ions and small molecules through, and to hold back what is large: proteins such as albumin have to stay in the blood.
In brief
The glomerulus is the capillary network of the renal corpuscle, and together with Bowman's capsule it forms the kidney's filtering unit.
Unlike most capillary beds, it sits between two arterioles: blood enters through the afferent one and leaves through the efferent one.
A tuft of capillaries with a valve at the inlet and another at the outlet.
Its filtration barrier lets water, ions and small molecules through, and must keep large proteins such as albumin from passing.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingHistology, Kidney and Glomerulus, StatPearlsPublished
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