2.70

2.70 Describe the structure of nephrons, to include Bowman’s capsule and glomerulus, convoluted tubules, loop of Henle and collecting duct

Inside each kidney, there are thousands of tiny tubes called nephrons. They filter your blood and remove waste chemicals. Blood is brought to each kidney in the renal artery, which contains a lot of waste chemicals like urea. The artery branches many times, and each branch ends with a bunch of capillaries called a glomerulus. The glomerulus is inside part of the nephron called the Bowman’s capsule (double-walled, cup-shaped), the first part of the kidney tubule. As blood passes through each glomerulus, that large molecules like blood proteins can’t pass through while small molecules like urea, glucose, salts and water pass out of the glomerulus into the nephrons. This is because the filter is like a net with tiny holes. The leftover urea and waste salts are dissolved in water to produce urine. It flows down the ureter to the bladder. The clean blood leaves the kidney into the renal vein. 

Nephron: functional unit of the kidney that does the filtration and controls the composition of the blood.

Aorta à Renal artery à blood into the kidney à the kidney filters the blood à Urine removed from blood à comes down the ureter à collects in the bladder for release

(Other cleaned blood enters the renal vein into the vena cava.)

The space in the middle is known as the pelvic region (NOT THE SAME AS PELVIS). Urine gets collected in this area and drains down the ureter.

They are labelled in different colours because the kidney is made up of millions of tubular structures.

The tubes are twisted into sections known as proximal (first twist) and distal (second twist) convoluted tubules (aka PCT and DCT).

The arrangement of the tubules gives the different colours in the kidney. There are millions of tubules of nephrons in a kidney.