Quick Facts
Basal cells are essentially stem cells, which have the potential to differentiate into supporting cells or olfactory sensory neurons.
Structure and/or Key Features
The olfactory epithelium is made up of various cell types such as basal cells, olfactory sensory neurons, and non-neuronal supporting cells (Rao, Vemuri and Carpenter, 2007).
The basal cells are a heterogenous population of epithelial cells and can be grouped into two categories based on histological and cellular characteristics. The categories are the horizontal and the globose basal cells (Standring, 2016).
The horizontal basal cells are compressed against the basement membrane of the olfactory epithelium. They contain nuclei that are condensed and a cytoplasm that contains a large number of intermediate cytokeratin filaments. The cytokeratin filaments are wedged into desmosomes that are situated between the basal cells and the neighboring supporting cells (Standring, 2016).
The globose basal cells are circular with pale euchromatic nuclei and cytoplasm, from which new olfactory sensory neurons originate directly (Standring, 2016).
Function
The basal cells are essentially stem cells, which have the potential to differentiate into supporting cells or olfactory sensory neurons (Kierszenbaum, 2007).
References
Kierszenbaum, A. L. (2007) Histology and Cell Biology: An Introduction to Pathology. Mosby Elsevier.
Rao, M. S., Vemuri, M. C. and Carpenter, M. (2007) Neural Development and Stem Cells. Contemporary Neuroscience: Humana Press.
Standring, S. (2016) Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice. Gray's Anatomy Series 41st edition: Elsevier Limited.
