Intestinal gland

Dear crypts (Latin: intestinal glands ), also known as Lieberkuhn glands and intestinal crypts, are about 0.2 to 0.4 mm deep tubular, partially branched indentations of the epithelium in the mucosa of the small and large intestine. They were named after the Berlin physician and anatomist Johann Nathanael Lieberkühn ( 1711-1756 ).

The Dear crypts serve the surface enlargement and secretion and according to recent findings, the control of iron balance in the human body by regulatory proteins. They were discovered in 1688 by Marcello Malpighi, but she described Lieberkühn first in 1745 in his " Dissertatio de fabrica et actione villorum intestinorum tenuium hominis ".