Urinary System Flashcards
The urinary system consists of _________ (4).
- Paired kidneys
- Ureters
- Bladder
- Urethra
This system’s primary role is to ensure optimal properties of the blood, which the kidneys continuously monitor.
Urinary system
It refers to a protease secreted into the blood that helps regulate blood pressure by cleaving circulating angiotensinogen to angiotensin I.
Renin
Tip of each pyramid that projects into a minor calyx that collects urine formed by tubules in one renal lobe.
Renal Papilla
Functional unit of the kidney
Nephron
An initial dilated part enclosing a tuft of capillary loops and the site of blood filtration, always located in the cortex.
Renal corpuscle
A short final part linking the nephron to collecting ducts.
Connecting tubule
Complex epithelial cells in the visceral layer of the renal corpuscle capsule which cover each capillary.
Podocytes
Slit-like spaces between interdigitating processes.
Pedicels
Between the two capsular layers, this receives the fluid filtered through the capillary wall and the visceral layer.
Capsular (urinary) space
A function of the renal corpuscle by which water and soluted in the blood leave the vascular space and enter the lumen of the nephron
filtration
A function of the renal corpuscle by which substances move from epithelial cells of the tubules into the lumens, usually after uptake from the surrounding intersttitium and capillaries
secretion
A function of the renal corpuscle by which substances move from the tubular lumen across the epithelium into the interstitium and surrounding capillaries
reabsorption
These resemble vascular pericytes in having contractile properties and producing components of an external lamina.
Mesangial cells
Fills interstices between capillaries that lack podocytes.
Mesangium
These provide physical support of capillaries within the glomerulus.
Mesangial cells
Mesangial cells provide adjusted contractions in response to blood pressure changes which help maintain an __________.
optimal filtration rate
Macrophage of the kidney
mesangial cells
This fills most of the cortex of which is specialized for both reabsorption and secretion.
Proximal convulated tubule
A U-shaped structure with a thin descending limb and a thin ascending limb.
Loop of Henle
A tubule with no brush border and more empty lumens.
Distal convulated tubule
Composed mainly of pale-staining columnar principal cells with few organelles, sparse microvilli, and unusually distinct cell boundaries
Collecting ducts
Important for reabsorption of water that are integral membrane proteins that serve as channels in the transfer of water, and in some cases, small solutes across the membrane.
aquaporins
Final site of water reabsorption from the filtrate
Medullary collecting ducts
