Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Mucus is also produced by a number of other animals. [36] All fish are covered in mucus secreted from glands all over their bodies. [37] Invertebrates such as snails and slugs secrete mucus called snail slime to enable movement, and to prevent their bodies from drying out.
The mucus produced by these cells is extremely important, as it prevents the stomach from digesting itself. [5] Parietal cells produce potent hydrochloric acid, which damages cells. Gastric chief cells produce pepsinogen, which is activated by the acid to form pepsin. Pepsin is a protease that can digest and damage stomach cells.
Every day, seven liters of fluid are secreted by the digestive system. This fluid is composed of four primary components: ions, digestive enzymes, mucus, and bile. About half of these fluids are secreted by the salivary glands, pancreas, and liver, which compose the accessory organs and glands of the digestive system.
They are made of a bone-like material called dentin, which is covered by the hardest tissue in the body—enamel. [8] Teeth have different shapes to deal with different aspects of mastication employed in tearing and chewing pieces of food into smaller and smaller pieces. This results in a much larger surface area for the action of digestive ...
Mucus forms a layer (or layers, in the case of the colon) that separates the bulk of the luminal contents from the intestinal epithelium. The mucus consists of a highly glycosylated hydrated gel formed by mucin molecules that are secreted by goblet cells. The mucus prevents large particles from contacting the epithelial cell layer while ...
In regions such as the gingiva and parts of the hard palate, oral mucosa is attached directly to the periosteum of underlying bone, with no intervening submucosa. This arrangement is called a mucoperiosteum and provides a firm, inelastic attachment. [12] A variable number of Fordyce spots or granules are scattered throughout the nonkeratinized ...
One example of glycoproteins found in the body is mucins, which are secreted in the mucus of the respiratory and digestive tracts. The sugars when attached to mucins give them considerable water-holding capacity and also make them resistant to proteolysis by digestive enzymes. Glycoproteins are important for white blood cell recognition.
The secretion produced is a mixture of both serous fluid and mucus, and enters the oral cavity via the submandibular duct or Wharton duct. [7] Around 70% of saliva in the oral cavity is produced by the submandibular glands, though they are much smaller than the parotid glands. [ 7 ]