EPIPHYSEAL DISK – 5
The figure contains the zone of serial cartilage and its transition to the zone of hypertrophic cartilage.
Lower image
1 – Zone of serial cartilage
Formed by chondrocytes that undergo cell division and their daughter cells become arranged in stacks (highlighted in red). The cartilage extracellular matrix is highlighted in light blue.
2- At the lower portion of each stack the chondrocytes increase in volume (highlighted in green) and constitute the Zone of hypertrophic cartilage
The increase in size reduces the amount of extracellular matrix and the chondrocytes become surrounded by a thinner layer of matrix.
