Vasa recta (kidney)
kidney blood supply
The vasa recta of the kidney, (vasa recta renis) are capillaries of the kidney, – a series of blood vessels in the blood supply of the kidney that enter the medulla as the straight arterioles, and leave the medulla to ascend to the cortex as the straight venules. (Latin: vās, "vessel"; rēctus, "straight"). They lie parallel to the loop of Henle.
These vessels branch off the efferent arterioles of juxtamedullary nephrons (those nephrons closest to the medulla). They enter the medulla, and surround the loop of Henle. Whereas the peritubular capillaries surround the cortical parts of the tubules, the vasa recta go into the medulla and are closer to the loop of Henle, and leave to ascend to the cortex.
Terminations of the vasa recta form the straight venules, branches from the plexuses at the apices of the medullary pyramids. They run outward in a straight course between the tubes of the medullary substance and join the interlobular veins to form venous arcades. These in turn unite and form veins which pass along the sides of the renal pyramids. The descending vasa recta have a non-fenestrated endothelium that contains a facilitated transport for urea; the ascending vasa recta have, on the other hand, a fenestrated endothelium.
“Vasa recta (kidney)” enters the record as kidney blood supply. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vasa, recta and kidney can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vasa recta (kidney)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.