SUPPLEMENTARY:
Respiratory epithelium of the trachea (HP)

This is a high power picture of the respiratory epithelium which lines the conducting passages of the respiratory system and the trachea. The epithelium consists of:

  • goblet cells which secrete mucus (stain pink in this section)

  • columnar ciliated cells with dark staining nuclei. The cells reach from the basement membrane to the lumen. The cilia can be seen as a dark band on the luminal surface.

  • replacement cells are shorter and fail to reach the surface of the epithelium, they have dark staining nuclei which lie in contact with the basement membrane.

    Immediately deep to the epithelium is the lamina propria in which there is a rich capillary bed. There are abundant elastic fibres in the lamina propria but they cannot be distinguished by this particular staining method

    There is more detailed information about the respiratory epithelium later in this tutorial.

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    Core Supplementary Material on Trachea
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