Tunica (redirected from tunica albuginea)

tunica [′tü·nə·kə]

(biology)

A membrane or layer of tissue that covers or envelops an organ or other anatomical structure.

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Tunica 

(1) In animals, the peripheral layer of skin coverings of ascidians, salpids, and other animals of the subphylum Tunicata, phylum Chordata. The tunica is a thickened cuticle of cutaneous epithelium that is colonized by cells, a unique phenomenon in the animal kingdom. It serves to protect the internal organs.

The tunica is composed of tunicin, a carbohydrate closely related to cellulose. This substance has a gelatinous consistency, which makes possible the implantation in the tunica of cells that migrate from the cutaneous epithelium. In histological structure, the tunica resembles connective tissue with a gelatinous basal substance. Blood vessels may grow into the tunica. In appendicu-larians, the tunica separates from the body as the result of a process that resembles molting, forming a transparent gelatinous or chitinoid membrane, which serves as an outer covering of the animal or which is appended to the animal externally. This structure is adapted to filtering food particles out of seawater.

(2) In plants, one or more external layers of cells of formative tissue (meristem) covering the corpus of the growing point (apex) in the form of a vault. Dicotyledons have as many as five tunicae, while monocotyledons have as many as three.

Cell division in the tunica predominantly occurs anticlinally, or perpendicular to the surface of the organ; hence the surface of the tunica enlarges without change in the number of cell layers. The epidermis is usually formed from the outer layer of the tunica, which corresponds to the dermatogen according to the histogen theory of the German botanist J. von Hanstein; the primary cortex or part of it is formed from the inner layer of the tunica. The tunica-corpus theory was proposed by the German scientist A. Schmidt in 1924. Sometimes only the layers of cells located higher than the rudimentary leaves are called the tunica. The number of layers of the tunica sometimes increases gradually, but always remains a characteristic taxonomical feature of the plant.