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Gutsy Blue (Blair Madison, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Andrea Waite, Graduate Student, Cell & Developmental Biology) The surface of the intestine is lined by millions of finger like structures (villi) that extend into the lumen of the intestine to provide enormous surface area for absorption of nutrients. This photograph shows a portion of an intestinal villus. The blue ovals are nuclei of individual cells that cover the villus surface. These cells absorb proteins, sugars and fats from food in the gut lumen. The absorbed nutrients are processed by these cells and then secreted into blood vessels that spiral up into the center of the villi (pink). The muscles (beige) in the center squeeze the villi to pump nutrients into the main blood stream.
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