Brightfield Microscopy Digital Image Gallery

Mammalian Hyaline Cartilage

Hyaline cartilage is the most prevalent of three types of cartilage found in humans and other vertebrates. It is also the type of the connective tissue that forms the embryonic skeleton. Bluish-gray, pearly, and semitranslucent, hyaline cartilage contains a large number of collagen fibrils dispersed in random directions and a relatively small amount of elastin. It is, therefore, very resilient, but not as flexible as elastic cartilage, which contains significantly greater amounts of elastin. More similar to the composition of hyaline cartilage is fibrocartilage, which also contains large amounts of collagen, albeit in dense bundles that are oriented so that they are parallel to one another.


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