21.4: Ureters

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Rosanna Hartline
West Hills College Lemoore

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Ureters

The ureters are a pair (right and left) of narrow, long muscular tubes between the kidneys and the urinary bladder. The ureters contain smooth muscle and move urine from the kidney to the urinary bladder peristalsis.

Microscopic image of ureter cross section. Transitional epithelium, connective tissue, muscularis externa, adventitia

Above: Cross section of a ureter. The ureter connects the renal pelvis with the urinary bladder. It is composed of a transitional epithelium, connective tissue layer, muscularis externa and adventitia. Tissue is magnified by 100x.

The ureter is lined by transitional epithelium overlying a connective tissue layer. For most of the ureter’s length, the muscularis externa is divided into inner longitudinal and outer circular layers (the reverse of the digestive tract). However, near the urinary bladder, an additional outer longitudinal layer is added.

Attributions

"Digital Histology" by Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and the Office of Faculty Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and the ALT Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
"Renal Anatomy" by Dongho Kim is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0