Alveolus

This is an auto-generated stub page built from atlas entry frontmatter. A richer hand-crafted page is planned. See the atlas source for the full entry including detailed body sections.

alveolus

Functional gas-exchange unit of the lung — 0.2 mm diameter air sac lined by AT1 (95% surface, flat) and AT2 (5% surface, cuboidal/surfactant) cells on a shared basement membrane apposed to pulmonary capillaries. ~300 million alveoli provide ~70 m² surface area.

Entry Metadata

Field	Value
ID	alveolus
Name	Alveolus
Status	draft
Last reviewed	2026-06-03
Atlas	01-human
Scale	05-tissue
Uberon	UBERON:0002299
Fma	FMA:7318

Cross-Atlas Connections

composed-ofType Ii Pneumocyte part-ofLung damaged-byMycobacterium Tuberculosis modulated-byHemoglobin infected-byPneumocystis Jirovecii damaged-byAspergillus Fumigatus connects-toOxygen

Sources

Weibel ER. Lung morphometry: the link between structure and function. Cell Tissue Res. 2017;367(3):413-26. · PubMed 27981371
Crapo JD, Barry BE, Gehr P, Bachofen M, Weibel ER. Cell number and cell characteristics of the normal human lung. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1982;125(6):740-5. · PubMed 7044530
West JB, Luks AM. West's Respiratory Physiology: The Essentials. 10th ed. Wolters Kluwer; 2016. ISBN 978-1-4963-1011-1.
Maina JN, West JB. Thin and strong! The bioengineering dilemma in the structural and functional design of the blood-gas barrier. Physiol Rev. 2005;85(3):811-44. · PubMed 15987797