Characteristics of Connective Tissue and Fiber Types
Not to be confused with muscle fibers.
Characteristics of CT:
- Cells are spread through an extracellular fluid.
- Ground substance - A clear, colorless, and viscous fluid containing glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans to fix the bodywater and the collagen fibers in the intercellular spaces. Ground substance slows the spread of pathogens.
- Fibers. Not all types of CT are fibrous. Examples include adipose tissue and blood. Adipose tissue gives "mechanical cushioning" to our body, among other functions. Although there is no dense collagen network in adipose tissue, groups of adipose cells are kept together by collagen fibers and collagen sheets in order to keep fat tissue under compression in place (for example, the sole of the foot). The matrix of blood is plasma.
- Both the ground substance and proteins (fibers) create the matrix for CT.
Types of fibers:
| Tissue | Purpose | Components | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collagenous fibers | - | Alpha polypeptide chains | tendon, ligament, skin, cornea, cartilage, bone, blood vessels, gut, and intervertebral disc. |
| Elastic fibers | - | elastic microfibril & elastin | extracellular matrix |
| Reticular fibers | - | Type-III collagen | liver, bone marrow, lymphatic organs |
Read more about this topic: Connective Tissue Cells
Famous quotes containing the words characteristics of, tissue, fiber and/or types:
“Our day you will find that you have stopped regarding your baby as a totally unpredictable and therefore rather alarming novelty, and have begun instead to think of him as a person with tastes, preferences and characteristics of his own. When that happens you will know that he has moved on from being a “newborn” and has got himself settled into life.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“Whether or not his newspaper and a set of senses reduced to five are the main sources of the so-called “real life” of the so- called average man, one thing is fortunately certain: namely, that the average man himself is but a piece of fiction, a tissue of statistics.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“He’s one of those know-it-all types that, if you flatter the wig off him, he chatter like a goony bird at mating time.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Johnson (Reginald Gardner)