Biology · Ch 10 — Animal Tissue
Glandular Epithelium
Glandular Epithelium
Glandular epithelium is made up of secretory cells that may be columnar, cuboidal or pyramidal in shape. The nucleus is comparatively large and lies towards the base of the cell, and the cytoplasm contains visible secretory granules.
Glands built from this tissue may be unicellular — a single scattered secretory cell, such as a goblet cell of the intestine — or multicellular, such as the salivary gland. Multicellular glands are further classed, by how they release their secretion, into:
- Exocrine (duct-bearing) glands, which pour their secretion out through a duct to a specific site, e.g. the salivary glands, sweat glands.
- Endocrine (ductless) glands, which release their secretion directly into the bloodstream, e.g. the thyroid gland, pituitary gland. …
What this figure shows. A columnar epithelial sheet on a basement membrane (connective tissue below) in which ordinary non-ciliated absorptive cells, each with microvilli at the free surface and a basal nucleus, alternate with goblet-shaped secretory cells whose upper halves are filled with pale mucus, illustrating a unicellular gland embedded with …