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The nephron is the minute or microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney. It is composed of a renal corpuscle and a renal tubule. The renal corpuscle consists of a tuft of capillaries called a glomerulus and a cup-shaped structure called Bowman's capsule. The renal tubule extends from the capsule.
The urinary system refers to the structures that produce and transport urine to the point of excretion. In the human urinary system there are two kidneys that are located between the dorsal body wall and parietal peritoneum on both the left and right sides. The formation of urine begins within the functional unit of the kidney, the nephrons.
The microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney is the nephron. It processes the blood supplied to it via filtration, reabsorption, secretion and excretion; the consequence of those processes is the production of urine. These include the nitrogenous wastes urea, from protein catabolism, and uric acid, from nucleic acid metabolism.
Each nephron begins in a renal corpuscle, which is composed of a glomerulus enclosed in a Bowman's capsule. Cells, proteins, and other large molecules are filtered out of the glomerulus by a process of ultrafiltration , leaving an ultrafiltrate that resembles plasma (except that the ultrafiltrate has negligible plasma proteins ) to enter Bowman ...
One of the measures of kidney function is the glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Other tests that can assess the function of the kidneys include assessment of electrolyte levels such as potassium and phosphate , assessment of acid-base status by the measurement of bicarbonate levels from a vein, and assessment of the full blood count for anaemia .
At this location, in the wall of the last portion of distal straight tubule, there is a modified region of tubular epithelium called the macula densa.(Fig. 5 in Kumaran and Hanukoglu 2020) [5] Cells in the macula densa respond to changes in the sodium chloride levels in the distal tubule of the nephron via the tubuloglomerular feedback (TGF) loop.
The glomerulus (pl.: glomeruli) is a network of small blood vessels (capillaries) known as a tuft, located at the beginning of a nephron in the kidney. Each of the two kidneys contains about one million nephrons. The tuft is structurally supported by the mesangium (the space between the blood vessels), composed of intraglomerular mesangial cells.
The nephron by itself is similar to pronephros as a whole organ. [18] The simplest nephrons are found in the pronephros, which is the final functional organ in primitive fish. [19] The nephrons of the mesonephros, the functional organ in most anamniotes called opisthonephros, [20] are slightly more complex than those of the pronephros. [19]