Nephrotome

The nephrotome is a section of the mesoderm. It gives rise to the pronephros and eventually to the rest of the kidney.

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A nephrotome is an obsolete term used to describe rounded mesodermal portions of the forming pronephros. In old texts the pronephros is described as forming through the fusion of multiple nephrotomes. Modern visualization methods such as scanning electron microscopy, in situ hybridization and confocal microscopy, combined with the simple approach of peeling off the epidermis to see the forming kidney, have shown that this is not the case. Nephric mesenchyme separates from the intermediate mesoderm as a single elongated primordia. As this primordia begins to undergo epithelialization the anterior portions of the pronephros form rounded protrusions, which then later become the dorsal branches of the pronephros that link to nephrostomes (distinct from nephrotomes). These rounded bumps are probably the structures observed in histological sections that are referred to as nephrotomes. Nephrostomes are thin ciliated funnels that link pronephric nephrons to the ceolom, and are not related to nephrotomes.