The Wall
Rebuilt every few days. Please don’t lean on it.
Tour the set
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Your guide to The Wall
Between the inside of your gut and the rest of you stands The Wall: a single layer of cells, sealed at the seams by tight junctions and coated in mucus. It decides what gets in. Nutrients cross; most microbes stay outside.
It’s one of the fastest-renewing tissues in the body. New cells are made in pits at the base, called crypts, climb toward the tips of the villi and are shed after a few days. For fuel, the cells of the small intestine lean heavily on L-glutamine; the cells of the colon run mainly on butyrate, made by the crew Downtown.
The cells lining your gut are replaced every few days, and L-glutamine is a main fuel for the ones in the small intestine.
Locals and staff
The crew lives on the other side of the mucus coat. The Wall keeps it that way.
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Next stop down the gut · Stop 8
Downtown
The colon. Where most gut microbes live. They ferment fibre into short-chain fatty acids (and gas).
