Chapter 4

Don’t be Terrified of Tissues

I still remember peering into a microscope at tissue slides and exclaiming “they all look the
same!” to my fellow students. We were equally perplexed and completely blind to the nuances
of histological exploration. Eventually, I did learn all those darn tissues by doing what most
students do, i.e., the brute force method. This means I spent countless hours viewing slides
until I just about had every cell on every slide memorized. This actually worked somewhat, that
is, until the professor added some neon stained slides that were completely different colors
than our “memorized” slides. The idea she was trying to drive home was that we weren't
supposed to memorize the slides (hey isn't all A&P memorization?). We were supposed to learn
something about tissue structure.
Lo and behold a little bit of knowledge about structure goes a long way in the world of tissues. I
hope you will take some time to learn a bit about how these buggers are put together so that
you can save a few brain cells for some of the more difficult concepts to come.

Learn the Main Categories

You can certainly use a bit of a formula for learning tissues. The idea is to summarize the
structure so you can at least identify the right category of tissue. Here are some Big Picture
pointers:

1. Epithelial tissue—consists of rows of cells. Sometimes there’s just one row (we call this
simple). Other times there are multiple rows (we call this stratified). Epithelium is also a
covering so there is usually a space next to the tissue. So if you see a space, look for the tissue
next to it. If it consists of rows of cells then yippee, it’s epithelium.

2. Connective tissue—consists of cells and fibers embedded in a matrix. Kind of like the old jello
mold with canned fruit suspended in a block of jello. The fruit is like the connective tissue cells
and the jello is a glycoprotein matrix. Think of the fibers as long strands of carrot (my mom used
to make this) suspended in the jello.

3. Muscle—long red cells connected together. Think of your long leg muscles consisting of rows
of long cells hooked up in a straight line. Two out of the three types of muscle tissues are also
striated or have a striped appearance.

4. Nervous—in nervous tissue you have some big ole cells to do your thinking called neurons.
So look for big cells with a bunch of little cells around them. The little cells are called neuroglia.
Once you can identify the categories, then you can get a wee bit more specific. Too bad there is
not just one kind of epithelium, there are a number of different types. There are some tricks to
pinning them down though.
The Big Picture: Epithelium

Epithelium is a covering characterized by rows of cells of different shapes.

To review, we said epithelium consisted of rows of cells usually next to an open space (because
epithelium covers things) (Fig. 4.1). We also said you can have one row (simple) or more than
one row (stratified). Well the next thing to do is to identify the shape of the cell. There are
three basic shapes:

Squamous—I usually call these the squashed squamous cells. From the side they look like fried
eggs.

Cuboidal—These are a bit thicker because they are cubes.

Columnar—Even thicker because they are rectangular.

So now we can combine what we know about rows (simple versus stratified) with what we
know about cell shapes.

Simple squamous—one thin layer of squamous cells. Since it’s so thin this is a great tissue for
substance exchange. We see this in areas where we need to transport substances like in
capillaries, lungs, and kidneys.

Stratified squamous—multiple layers of squamous cells. This one is a bit tricky in that the cells
at the bottom of all of the layers are actually thicker (more cuboidal). As they migrate to the top
layers they become thinner (more squashed). We see this tissue in the skin.

Simple cuboidal—one layer of cube-like cells. This is a thicker layer than simple squamous and
usually is found lining tubes in the body (ducts).

Stratified cuboidal—a thicker layer that still lines ducts. Found in mammary, sweat, salivary
glands and in the pancreas.

Simple columnar—one layer of thicker cells.

Stratified columnar—an even thicker layer.

Oddball Epithelium
Now we can learn about the oddball epithelium tissue. There are two types of oddball epithelial
tissues. These include pseudostratified columnar and transitional epithelium.
Pseudostratified columnar—this one looks like multiple layers but it’s not. It looks like it’s
stratified because the nuclei of the cells don’t line up. In real stratified columnar the nuclei
would form nice rows but in pseudostratified they are all over the place. This one also has hair
(cilia) and a special type of mucous secreting cell called a goblet cell. Both work together to
move stuff along the surface of the cells. You’ll find this one in the respiratory and digestive
tracts.

Transitional—kind of like stratified squamous but with a big difference. Remember in stratified
squamous epithelium we had big cells at the bottom getting squashed on the top. Well in
transitional we have big cells on the bottom and big cells on the top. No squashed squamous
cells here. We find transitional epithelium in the urinary bladder.

Fig. 4.1 Types of Epithelium.

The Big Picture: Connective Tissue

Connective tissue is characterized by cells imbedded in a matrix.

There’s a bunch of different kinds of connective tissue and each one has a specific
characteristic. Let’s see if we can narrow things down a bit.

Loose—looks like it sounds. Loosely organized tissue with some cells and fibers scattered about
a matrix. Found in the deeper layers of the skin (dermis) and throughout the body. This tissue is
sometimes called areolar (Fig. 4.2).

Dense—now we are getting somewhere with regard to some structure. Anything called dense
has gotta have some kind of structure to it. It does, with some thick collagen fibers running
lengthwise through the tissue. Found in the tendons and ligaments. This tissue is sometimes
called fibrous (Fig. 4.2).

Adipose—adipose means fat. So wherever there’s fat in the body there’s adipose tissue. It
consists of big fat cells containing fat (Fig. 4.2)

Reticular—sounds complicated and it kinda is. It forms delicate branching networks in the
lymphatic system.
Fig 4.2. Types of Connective Tissue

Fig. 4.3 More Connective Tissue Types.

Now that you have a handle on these let’s look at some oddball examples of connective
tissue.

There’s a category of connective tissue called “special.” This includes bone, blood and
cartilage.

Here’s the big picture:

Bone—nuthin else in the body looks like bone (Fig. 4.4). Bone (osseous tissue) looks something
like the inside of a tree trunk that was cut down. Those circular units inside are called Haversian
Systems or osteons and are oriented along the lines of force of the bone.
Fig. 4.4. Bone is highly organized and contains structural units called Haversian systems. These
are oriented along the long axis of bones to give it strength.

Blood—another unique looking tissue and strangely categorized as a liquid connective tissue
(Fig. 4.3). The matrix in blood is the plasma and the cells include red and white blood cells and
fragments of cells called platelets.

Cartilage—this one is a bit tricky. You need to look for the characteristic cell with the hole
around it. The cell is called the chondrocyte and the hole is called the lacuna. You then look at
the matrix. The matrix is either smooth looking (looks like ground glass) or contains fibers. If it’s
smooth with no fibers the cartilage is called hyaline cartilage (Figs. 4.3, 4.5). If it contains fibers
then you need to see if they are straight (collagen fibers in fibrocartilage) or branching (elastic
fibers in elastic cartilage).

Fig. 4.5. Hyaline cartilage has a smooth matrix. The chondrocytes are surrounded by a space
called a lacuna.

The Big Picture: Muscle Tissue

Muscle tissue consists of long red cells that are either striped or not.

We already mentioned that muscle consists of long red cells. There are three types of muscle
tissue as well. These include skeletal, cardiac and smooth. So in addition to long red cells we
have some other distinguishing characteristics. For example skeletal (Fig. 4.7) and cardiac
muscle tissue are both called striated because they contain what looks like stripes (Fig. 4.6). The
striations come from the densely packed protein filaments.
So if both skeletal and cardiac muscles are striated then how can we tell these apart? The trick
lies in an additional structure found in cardiac muscle called the intercalated disc. This structure
appears as a dark line between cells. It is actually a cell junction that interconnects the cells.
The disc helps to conduct electrical impulses across the heart muscle.
Smooth muscle is not striated and appears more loosely organized. Smooth muscle does not
need to contract as forcefully as skeletal muscle so its fibers are a bit more random (Fig. 4.6).

Fig. 4.6 Three types of muscle tissue.

Fig. 4.7 Skeletal muscle tissue is striated.

The Big Picture: Nervous Tissue

Nervous tissue consists of big cells called neurons and little cells called glia.

You need those big cells to do some thinking and that’s what you see in nervous tissue (Fig.
4.8). Big cells called neurons surrounded by smaller cells called glial cells. Usually in the tissue
section you only need to identify nervous tissue. Later in the nervous system you will learn
more about the function of this tissue.
Fig. 4.8. Nervous tissue contains large cells called neurons (stained dark) and supportive glial
cells.
Image Credits
Chapter 4
4.1 From: [Link]
4.2 From: [Link]
4.3 From: [Link]
4.4 From: [Link]
4.5 From: [Link]
4.6 From: [Link]
4.7 Author
4.8 Author