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Urothelial cell of the bladder
Make it clearer
On the other side of the bladder wall is the rest of the body, and something has to keep the urine from reaching it. What holds that line is the urothelium, the inner lining of the bladder, and the cells that make it up are called urothelial cells. That same lining is found in the ureter, in the bladder, and in the first stretch of the urethra.
The row that touches the urine is made of umbrella-shaped cells that often have two nuclei, the cell's command centers. Between them are tight junctions, seals that close off the space between one cell and the next, and on top they carry a coat of a protein called uroplakin. With the seals and the coating together, that row ends up impermeable, like the tiling in a swimming pool: the pieces fit so tightly together that liquid cannot seep through the joints. Farther down there are polygonal cells, with several sides, and at the base of the urothelium some small cuboidal cells.
In brief
Urothelial cells form the urothelium, the epithelium that lines the bladder, the ureter, and the proximal urethra.
The apical layer is a single row of umbrella cells, often binucleated, that form an impermeable barrier: their tight junctions slow passage between cells, and uroplakin coats their surface.
That row seals like the tile in a swimming pool: the pieces fit so tightly together that water cannot seep through the joints.
Below are layers of polygonal cells and, at the base, small cuboidal cells.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology InformationHistology, Bladder. StatPearls
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