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The nephron is the functional unit of the kidney. [3] This means that each separate nephron is where the main work of the kidney is performed. A nephron is made of two parts: a renal corpuscle, which is the initial filtering component, and; a renal tubule that processes and carries away the filtered fluid. [4]: 1024
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.
Proper function of the kidney requires that it receives and adequately filters blood. This is performed at the microscopic level by many hundreds of thousands of filtration units called renal corpuscles , each of which is composed of a glomerulus and a Bowman's capsule .
The first step in urine formation is the filtration of blood in the kidneys. In a healthy human, the kidney receives between 12 and 30% of cardiac output, but it averages about 20% or about 1.25 L/min. The basic structural and functional unit of the kidney is the nephron.
The juxtaglomerular apparatus (also known as the juxtaglomerular complex) is a structure in the kidney that regulates the function of each nephron, the functional units of the kidney. The juxtaglomerular apparatus is named because it is next to (juxta-[1]) the glomerulus.
The glomerulus and its surrounding Bowman's capsule constitute a renal corpuscle, the basic filtration unit of the kidney. [2] The rate at which blood is filtered through all of the glomeruli, and thus the measure of the overall kidney function, is the glomerular filtration rate.
Nephrology is a specialty for both adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function (renal physiology) and kidney disease (renal pathophysiology), the preservation of kidney health, and the treatment of kidney disease, from diet and medication to renal replacement therapy (dialysis and kidney transplantation).
The main structural and functional element of the kidney is the nephron. [15] Between animals , the kidneys can differ in the number of nephrons and in their organisation. [ 16 ] According to the complexity of the organisation of the nephron, the kidneys are divided into pronephros , mesonephros and metanephros . [ 17 ]