The tiny hair-like projections that protrude from the inside of the small intestine that contain blood vessels that capture digested nutrients that are absorbed through the intestinal wall; the villi increase the absorptive surface area of the small intestine by approximately 30-fold. [ http://www.informatics.jax.org/accession/rbabiuk MP:0008108 http://www.informatics.jax.org/accession/csmith ]
Term information
- BTO:0003121
- Wikipedia:Intestinal_villus
- UMLS:C1519988 (ncithesaurus:Villus)
- NCIT:C33874
- EMAPA:35784
- SCTID:23230007
- FMA:15072
- TAO:0005125
- ZFA:0005125
- MA:0001563
uberon_slim, pheno_slim, vertebrate_core
The tiny hair-like projections that protrude from the inside of the small intestine that contain blood vessels that capture digested nutrients that are absorbed through the intestinal wall; the villi increase the absorptive surface area of the small intestine by approximately 30-fold.
in mammals, villi are (largely?) absent from the large intestine, so we treat this as equivalent to small intestinal villus. small/large subdivision may not make sense for all species for which this is present (see ZFA). Note that VHOG quotes ISBN:978-0030223693 as suggesting there are some villi in the large intestine
The entire digestive tract is lined by well developed villi, which are longest in the intestinal bulb and decrease progressively in size towards the caudal end of the intestine. No crypts are present, but, the regions between the villi, the intervillus pockets, have a crypt-like function. Cells are produced in the intervillus pockets and shed from the villus tips. Crosnier et al. 2005[TAO]
villus intestinalis (intestinum tenue)
enteric villus
enteric villi
villus
villi intestinales
enteric villous
intestinal villi
Term relations
- protein-containing material entity
- organ component layer
- has part some striated border microvillus layer
- has part some blood vessel
- has part some epithelial cell
- part of some intestinal epithelium