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Paracellular
Paracellular transport refers to the transfer of substances across an epithelium by passing through the intercellular space ''between'' the cells. It is in contrast to transcellular transport, where the substances travel ''through'' the cell, passing through both the apical membrane and basolateral membrane. The distinction has particular significance in renal physiology and intestinal physiology. Transcellular transport often involves energy expenditure whereas paracellular transport is unmediated and passive down a concentration gradient, or by osmosis (for water) and solvent drag for solutes. Paracellular transport also has the benefit that absorption rate is matched to load because it has no transporters that can be saturated. In most mammals, intestinal absorption of nutrients is thought to be dominated by transcellular transport, e.g., glucose is primarily absorbed via the SGLT1 transporter and other glucose transporters. Paracellular absorption therefore plays only a mi ...
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Tight Junction
Tight junctions, also known as occluding junctions or ''zonulae occludentes'' (singular, ''zonula occludens''), are multiprotein Cell junction, junctional complexes between epithelial cells, sealing and preventing leakage of solutes and water. They also play a critical role maintaining the structure and permeability of Endothelium, endothelial cells. Tight junctions may also serve as leaky pathways by forming selective channels for small cations, anions, or water. The corresponding junctions that occur in invertebrates are septate junctions. Structure Tight junctions are composed of a branching network of sealing strands, each strand acting independently from the others. Therefore, the efficiency of the junction in preventing ion passage increases exponentially with the number of strands. Each strand is formed from a row of transmembrane proteins embedded in both plasma membranes, with extracellular domains joining one another directly. There are at least 40 different proteins ...
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Transcellular Transport
Transcellular transport involves the transportation of solutes by a cell ''through'' a cell. Transcellular transport can occur in three different ways active transport, passive transport, and transcytosis. Active Transport Active transport is the process of moving molecules from an area of low concentrations to an area of high concentration. There are two types of active transport, primary active transport and secondary active transport. Primary active transport uses adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to move specific molecules and solutes against its concentration gradient. Examples of molecules that follow this process are potassium K+, sodium Na+, and calcium Ca2+. A place in the human body where this occurs is in the intestines with the uptake of glucose. Secondary active transport is when one solute moves down the electrochemical gradient to produce enough energy to force the transport of another solute from low concentration to high concentration. An example of where this ...
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Epithelium
Epithelium or epithelial tissue is a thin, continuous, protective layer of cells with little extracellular matrix. An example is the epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin. Epithelial ( mesothelial) tissues line the outer surfaces of many internal organs, the corresponding inner surfaces of body cavities, and the inner surfaces of blood vessels. Epithelial tissue is one of the four basic types of animal tissue, along with connective tissue, muscle tissue and nervous tissue. These tissues also lack blood or lymph supply. The tissue is supplied by nerves. There are three principal shapes of epithelial cell: squamous (scaly), columnar, and cuboidal. These can be arranged in a singular layer of cells as simple epithelium, either simple squamous, simple columnar, or simple cuboidal, or in layers of two or more cells deep as stratified (layered), or ''compound'', either squamous, columnar or cuboidal. In some tissues, a layer of columnar cells may appear to be stratified d ...
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Renal Physiology
Renal physiology (Latin language, Latin ''renes'', "kidneys") is the study of the physiology of the kidney. This encompasses all functions of the kidney, including maintenance of acid-base balance; regulation of fluid balance; regulation of sodium, potassium, and other electrolytes; clearance (medicine), clearance of toxins; absorption of glucose, amino acids, and other small molecules; regulation of blood pressure; production of various hormones, such as erythropoietin; and activation of vitamin D. Much of renal physiology is studied at the level of the nephron, the smallest functional unit of the kidney. Each nephron begins with a #Filtration, filtration component that filters the blood entering the kidney. This filtrate then flows along the length of the nephron, which is a tubular structure lined by a single layer of specialized cell (biology), cells and surrounded by capillary, capillaries. The major functions of these lining cells are the reabsorption of water and small mol ...
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Solvent Drag
Solvent drag, also known as bulk transport, refers to solutes in the ultrafiltrate that are transported back from the renal tubule by the flow of water rather than specifically by ion pumps or other membrane transport proteins. Page 791 This is a phenomenon primarily in renal physiology Renal physiology (Latin language, Latin ''renes'', "kidneys") is the study of the physiology of the kidney. This encompasses all functions of the kidney, including maintenance of acid-base balance; regulation of fluid balance; regulation of sodiu ..., but it also occurs in gastrointestinal physiology. It generally occurs in the paracellular, rather than transcellular, pathway between the tubular cells. It is seen e.g. in the passive transport in renal sodium reabsorption, renal chloride reabsorption as well as renal urea handling. References {{renal physiology Renal physiology de:Solvent Drag ...
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Claudin
Claudins are a family of proteins which, along with occludin, are the most important components of the tight junctions ( zonulae occludentes). Tight junctions establish the paracellular barrier that controls the flow of molecules in the intercellular space between the cells of an epithelium. They have four transmembrane domains, with the N-terminus and the C-terminus in the cytoplasm. Structure Claudins are small (20–24/27 kilodalton (kDa)) transmembrane proteins which are found in many organisms, ranging from nematodes to human beings. They all have a very similar structure. Claudins span the cellular membrane 4 times, with the N-terminal end and the C-terminal end both located in the cytoplasm, and two extracellular loops which show the highest degree of conservation. Claudins have both cis and trans interactions between cell membranes. Cis-interactions is when claudins on the same membrane interact, one way they interact is by transmembrane domain having molecular inte ...
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Apical Membrane
The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of a cell from the outside environment (the extracellular space). The cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer, made up of two layers of phospholipids with cholesterols (a lipid component) interspersed between them, maintaining appropriate membrane fluidity at various temperatures. The membrane also contains membrane proteins, including integral proteins that span the membrane and serve as membrane transporters, and peripheral proteins that loosely attach to the outer (peripheral) side of the cell membrane, acting as enzymes to facilitate interaction with the cell's environment. Glycolipids embedded in the outer lipid layer serve a similar purpose. The cell membrane controls the movement of substances in and out of a cell, being selectively permeable to ions and organic molecule ...
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Osmosis
Osmosis (, ) is the spontaneous net movement or diffusion of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane, selectively-permeable membrane from a region of high water potential (region of lower solute concentration) to a region of low water potential (region of higher solute concentration), in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides. It may also be used to describe a physical process in which any solvent moves across a selectively permeable membrane (permeable to the solvent, but not the solute) separating two solutions of different concentrations. Osmosis can be made to do Work (physics), work. Osmotic pressure is defined as the external pressure required to prevent net movement of solvent across the membrane. Osmotic pressure is a colligative properties, colligative property, meaning that the osmotic pressure depends on the molar concentration of the solute but not on its identity. Osmosis is a vital process in biology, bi ...
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SGLT1
Sodium/glucose cotransporter 1 (SGLT1) also known as solute carrier family 5 member 1 is a protein in humans that is encoded by the gene which encodes the production of the SGLT1 protein to line the absorptive cells in the small intestine and the epithelial cells of the kidney tubules of the nephron for the purpose of glucose uptake into cells. Recently, it has been seen to have functions that can be considered as promising therapeutic target to treat diabetes and obesity. Through the use of the sodium glucose cotransporter 1 protein, cells are able to obtain glucose which is further utilized to make and store energy for the cell. Structure The sodium glucose cotransporter 1 is classified as an integral membrane protein that is made up of 14 alpha-helices constructed from the folding of 482-718 amino acid residues with both the N and C-terminal residing upon the extracellular side of the plasma membrane. It is hypothesized that the protein contains protein kinase A and pro ...
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Glucose Transporter
Glucose transporters are a wide group of membrane proteins that facilitate the transport of glucose across the plasma membrane, a process known as facilitated diffusion. Because glucose is a vital source of energy for all life, these transporters are present in all phyla. The GLUT or SLC2A family are a protein family that is found in most mammalian cells. 14 GLUTS are encoded by the human genome. GLUT is a type of uniporter transporter protein. Synthesis of free glucose Most non-autotrophic cells are unable to produce free glucose because they lack expression of glucose-6-phosphatase and, thus, are involved only in glucose uptake and catabolism. Usually produced only in hepatocytes, in fasting conditions, other tissues such as the intestines, muscles, brain, and kidneys are able to produce glucose following activation of gluconeogenesis. Glucose transport in yeast In ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' glucose transport takes place through facilitated diffusion. The transport p ...
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Gastrointestinal Tract
The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the Digestion, digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The tract is the largest of the body's systems, after the cardiovascular system. The GI tract contains all the major organ (biology), organs of the digestive system, in humans and other animals, including the esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Food taken in through the mouth is digestion, digested to extract nutrients and absorb energy, and the waste expelled at the anus as feces. ''Gastrointestinal'' is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the stomach and intestines. Nephrozoa, Most animals have a "through-gut" or complete digestive tract. Exceptions are more primitive ones: sponges have small pores (ostium (sponges), ostia) throughout their body for digestion and a larger dorsal pore (osculum) for excretion, comb jellies have both a ventral mouth and dorsal anal pores, while cnidarians and acoels have ...
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