Glands

          Glands are classified as either endocrine or exocrine. Endocrine glands do not have direct outlets for its products that is why they are called ductless glands. The products of these glands are picked up by nearby (mostly fenestrated) capillaries and transported to its target organs through the blood. On the other hand, exocrine glands have ducts that transport glandular products directly into the external environment such as the alimentary canal and skin.
          There are different types of exocrine glands. The complexity ranges from simple cellular glands like goblet cells to compound mixed tubular and acinar glands like the salivary glands. Tubular glands have their secretory region in the form of tubes while acinar glands have urn-shaped secretory regions. Mixed glands like the tubuloacinar glands have both types of secretory regions. The secretory regions are areas where glandular products are mostly produced while the excretory ducts are tubules that transport these products toward the external environment.

Types of Glands as Shown in Gartner and Hiatt (2007).

          The simplest type of glands are the goblet cells. As the name implies, these are unicellular glands that can be found in several areas of the body like the digestive tract, nasal passages and the respiratory tract. These glands produce mucous secretions to protect linings from acids and enzymes such as in the digestive tract or to keep linings moist such as in the respiratory tract.

Duodenal Goblet Cell

Tracheal Goblet Cell

          The next type of glands are simple and compound tubular glands. These glands are

References

Note: This list of references is immediately updated every time a new reference is used.

Eroschenko VP. 2000. Di Fiore's atlas of histology with functional correlations. 9th Edition. Baltimore,                   Maryland (MD): Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 363 p.

Gartner LP, Hiatt JL. 2007. Color textbook of histoloy. 3rd Edition. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA):                     Saunders Elsevier. 573 p.

Solomon EP, Berg LR, Martin DW. 2006. Biology. 7th Edition. Singapore: Thomson Learning Asia. 1108             p.

On Histology

          Histology is one of my most favorite subjects in college. As what my professor have said, it is one of the higher branches of biology along with physiology which requires the integration of other biology subjects like embryology, developmental biology, cell and molecular biology, anatomy, and biochemistry.
          In histology (animal histology), students learn about the basic components of the human body through studying the basic composition of organs and organ systems - the tissues. It is in histology where the tissues are given the spotlight to focus the attention on what these organs are made of based on the different types of tissues that compose them. Histology is where we get to understand physiology more by visualizing the processes of physiology in a more systematic way, that is, we get to see where each process occurs and what organs are involved.
          I created this, hopefully, very educational page to help students in one way or another cope with their biology subjects and help them understand and love histology even more. I hope this site will help you a lot in your histology studies.
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