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. [ MP:0008108 http://www.informatics.jax.org/accession/rbabiuk http://www.informatics.jax.org/accession/csmith ]
Synonyms: villus intestinalis (intestinum tenue) enteric villus enteric villi villi intestinales villus enteric villous intestinal villi
Term information
- BTO:0003121
- Wikipedia:Intestinal_villus
- EMAPA:35784
- ZFA:0005125
- TAO:0005125
- UMLS:C1519988 (ncithesaurus:Villus)
- NCIT:C33874
- MA:0001563
- FMA:15072
- SCTID:23230007
uberon_slim, pheno_slim, vertebrate_core
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]