This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Interstitial space (biology) is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
In biology, the interstitial space, also called the tissue space, is the space that surrounds the cells of a given tissue. It is filled with interstitial fluid. Interstitial refers to a "small opening or space between objects". Together with the vascular space, the interstitial space comprises the extracellular space.[1] When excessive fluid accumulates in the interstitial space, edema develops.[2]
In the lungs there is an interstitial space between capillaries (tiny blood vessels) and the alveoli (the microscopic air-filled sacs in the lungs responsible for absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere). For gas exchange to occur, carbon dioxide must diffuse across the epithelium of the capillaries across the interstitial space, and across the alveolar epithelium; oxygen must diffuse the other direction.
References
- ^ Fleischhauer J, Lehmann L, Kléber AG (August 1995). "Electrical resistances of interstitial and microvascular space as determinants of the extracellular electrical field and velocity of propagation in ventricular myocardium". Circulation 92 (3): 587–94. PMID 7634473.
- ^ Wiese D (2005). "Edema", in Tierney LM, Henderson MA: The Patient History: Evidence Based Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill, 249. ISBN 0-07-140260-8. Retrieved on 2008-07-01.
External links
- Levitt DG. The pharmacokinetics of the interstitial space in humans BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2003, 3:3doi:10.1186/1472-6904-3-3
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 2 July 2008, at 23:26.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Interstitial space (biology)".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.