Reticular fiber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reticular fibers are the main structural fiber in some connective tissues.
[edit] Structure
Reticular fiber consists of one or more types of very thin and delicately woven strands of type III collagen, these strands build a highly ordered cellular network and provide a supporting network. Many of these types of collagen have been combined with carbohydrate. Thus, they react with silver stains and with periodic acid-Schiff reagent but are not demonstrated with ordinary histological stains such as those using hematoxylin.
[edit] Locations
Networks of these fibers make up stroma of lymphatic and hemopoietic tissues such as the thymus, lymph nodes, spleen, and bone marrow.
[edit] External links
| classification: proper (loose/areolar, dense, adipose, reticular) embryonic (mucous, mesenchymal) specialized (cartilage, bone, blood)
extracellular matrix: ground substance (tissue fluid) fibers (collagen, reticular fiber, elastic fibers) cells: resident (fibroblast, adipocyte, chondroblast, osteoblast), wandering cell |
