Kidney in Detail

Standard Grade Biology

 Excretion by the Kidney
• Urea
-nitrogenous waste
-made by liver
-excess amino acids in blood
-toxic

• Why must nitrogenous waste be excreted?

 1 – Filtration by the Kidney
•Supplied with blood
from renal artery
Renal
Lets have a
artery look at a
•Inside it splits into nephron!!!
many fine capillaries
Renal
•Each capillary vein
supplies blood to
hundreds of
thousands of tiny
filtration units called
Ureter
nephrons
1. Glomerulus brings a large
surface area of blood
capillaries in close contact Blood from
with Bowman’s capsule renal artery
enters wide
capillary
2. Liquid filtered from blood
under pressure (filtration)

3. Glomerular filtrate produced

Blood travels
containing:
through
-water narrow
-glucose Filtration capillary
-salts towards rena
-urea vein
Glomerular
filtrate
(Protein molecules and red blood
cells do not pass into tubule as
they are TOO BIG!!!!)
 Think…
• Which feature of the glomerulus helps the
process of filtration?

• Which 4 components of unfiltered blood

appear in the glomerular filtrate?

• Why do blood cells and protein molecules

not appear in the glomerular filtrate?
 Key Words!!
Nephron: structure in the kidney that acts as a
microscopic filtration unit

Glomerulus: dense mass of very fine blood capillaries at

the nephron that act as a filter

Bowman’s capusle:cup-shaped part of the nephron that

holds a glomerulus and collects the products of
filtration from it

Glomerular filtrate: liquid removed from the blood by

filtration in the kidney
2 – Reabsorption by the Kidney
• Once the main components of glomerulur filtrate
enter the bloodstream
-they are no longer in bloodstream

• If nothing more happened in the nephron then all

the useful stuff would be lost in the urine!

• Therefore, glucose, water and some salts need

to be reabsorbed!
 More water
reabsorbed

Glucose
reabsorbed Final urine
containing:
-excess water
-unneeded salts
-waste urea

Variable amounts of water

and salts reabsorbed and
filtrate gradually turning into
urine
 Think….
• Which three components of the glomerular
filtrate are reabsorbed?

• Why is it important for these to be

reabsorbed?

• Which substances are present in the final

urine?
• Summary of kidney function
 2 – Controlling Water
Concentration
• Blood
-important part of internal environment
-constantly changing water concentration
-e.g. exercising
drinking lots of water

• The body uses negative feedback control

to regulate water content of the blood
How does it work?
• Control of Water animation
This powerpoint was kindly donated to
www.worldofteaching.com

http://www.worldofteaching.com is home to over a

thousand powerpoints submitted by teachers. This is a
completely free site and requires no registration. Please
visit and I hope it will help in your teaching.