Digestive Enzymes: Nintendo Gameboy

specific enzyme (Knowles, 1991). One part of the enzyme, salivary amylase, is that alpha amylase is in the saliva of most animals because this enzyme breaks down starch (Jacobsen, Melvaer, Hensten- Pettersen, 1972). In the presence of starch, this enzyme is present in saliva, but is not present when there is no starch present (Jacobsen, Melvaer, Hensten- Pettersen, 1972). The conditions for salivary amylase to have a reaction with starch would change in temperature and enzyme concentration, as well as, monitoring the pH levels (Jacobsen, Melvaer, Hensten- Pettersen, 1972). Salivary amylase is an enzyme is human saliva that helps in digestion of specific substrates, such as starch (Hudman, Friend, Hartman, Ashton, Catron, 1957). It breaks down starch molecules by splitting maltose from the non-reducing end of a gluten molecule (Jacobsen, Melvaer, Hensten-Pettersen, 1972).

We eat all types of food everyday, we have one important tool that we use to break down food which is enzymes. Digestion starts once food is chewed with saliva found in our mouths. Saliva contains all kinds of enzymes and there are hundreds types of enzymes in terms of breaking down food such as amylase,

The energy that we use to digest food and to absorb, metabolize, and store the nutrients from food is called diet-induced thermogenesis.

The pancreatic amylase, once it enters the small intestine, breaks down the amylose, amylopectin, and smaller chains of carbohydrates into maltose, a disaccharide. The small intestine absorbs all of the disaccharides. Brush border enzymes, located in the microvilli of the intestine help break down the disaccharides into monosaccharides. Once the disaccharides transform into monosaccharides, the monosaccharides go to the liver. The liver is where the conversion of fructose and galactose into glucose take place. Most of the glucose runs through the body via the blood, or stays inside the

Do you enjoy eating smoothies packed full of berries and other tasty fruits? This paper is going to discuss how digestive enzymes convert sucrose and lactose into glucose. The following terms will be discussed: Sugar, Carbohydrates, Sucrose, and Glucose.

Enzymes serve many vital functions as they aid with important processes, which allows for reactions to occur. Enzymes are characterized as macromolecules that serve as catalysts, which are chemical agents that can increase the rate of a reaction, whilst not being consumed by the reaction (Urry et al., 2017). Without enzymes, chemical reactions would not be catalyzed, thus resulting in inactive states. In addition to serving as catalysts to start chemical reactions, enzymes are also involved with digestion. This is essential since enzymes help these metabolic reactions to occur, which provides organisms with the necessary nutrients and energy in order to survive.

Digestive enzymes in the stomach and intestines work to breakdown food particles once it has been consumed, so that nutrient from the food may be diffused in to the bloodstream or excreted as waste. It is much easier for the enzymes to do this when the food they are exposed to has a large surface area to volume ratio. When eaten, foods are broken down by teeth, creating a greater surface for which the chemicals can act on during digestion. The volume or amount of food remains the same but the total surface area to volume ratio thus the rate at which the digestive enzymes work is more efficient. Cellulose found in the walls of plant cell can be difficult for animals to consume, however chewing physically breaks down the cell walls, exposing

The abundance of our body’s ability to carry out the functions required to sustain itself, relies heavily on our diets. And not “diet” in terms of a fad you might read about in a health magazine, but rather in terms of the food we consume for the nutrient contents it contains. This is also referred to as a food’s nutrient density. In addition to the food choices we make, a vital system in our bodies is composed of several organs that work together to chew, swallow, breakdown, absorb, and expel what was once lunch, into usable energy for every day tasks (Yale, Kathleen). This system is known as our digestive tract, or our gastrointestinal tract (GI). Of the many important organs that make up the GI tract, our stomach acts as an intermediary

In this lab our group observed the role of pancreatic amylase in the digestion of starch and the optimum temperature and pH that affects this enzyme. Enzymes are located inside of cells that increase the rate of a chemical reaction (Cooper, 2000). Most enzymes function in a narrow range of pH between 5 through 9 (Won-Park, Zipp, 2000). The temperature for which enzymes can function is limited as well ranging from 0 degrees Celsius (melting point) to 100 degrees Celsius (boiling point)(Won-Park, Zipp, 2000). When the temperature varies in range it can affect the enzyme either by affecting the constant of the reaction rate or by thermal denturization of the particular enzyme (Won-Park, Zipp, 2000). In this lab in particular the enzyme, which was of concern, was pancreatic amylase. This type of amylase comes from and is secreted from the pancreas to digest starch to break it down into a more simple form called maltose. Maltose is a disaccharide composed of two monosaccharides of glucose. The presence of glucose in our experiment can be identified by Benedicts solution, which shows that the reducing of sugars has taken place. If positive the solution will turn into a murky reddish color, where if it is negative it will stay clear in our reaction. We can also test if no reduction of sugars takes place by an iodine test. If starch is present the test will show a dark black color (Ophardt, 2003).

In all digestion reactions, nutrients are broken down by enzymes through a chemical process. The chemical equation and word equation can vary a little bit, depending on what is being digested in our bodies. In our paper we will talk about things that combine chemistry with the chemical equation and the process of substances being broken down in our digestive system. Also we will talk about the chemical properties that take place and occur in the digestive process.

The primary function of the digestive system is to transfer nutrients, water, and electrolytes from the food consume into the body’s internal environment. The ingested food is essential as an energy source, or fuel, from which the cells can generate ATP to carry out their particular energy-dependent activities such as contraction, transport, synthesis, secretion and even renewal of body tissues. Three primary categories of food ingested by humans which are carbohydrates, proteins and fats emerge as large molecules. These large molecules cannot cross plasma membranes intact to be absorbed from the lumen of the digestive tract into the blood or lymph; hence, it must undergo degradation in size (Sherwood, 2013). This

The objective of this lab was to assess the effect that temperature and pH had on pancreatic amylase. Amylase is an enzyme involved in digestion and is secreted by both the pancreas and salivary glands (Pandol, 2010). Both salivary and pancreatic amylase display the same enzymatic activities through their role in the digestion of starch (Pandol, 2010). The goal of both salivary and pancreatic amylase is to hydrolyze starch thus breaking down the polysaccharide into a disaccharide such as maltose (Pandol, 2010). As a result, amylase breaks down these sugars making them more easily absorbed in the body during digestion (Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 2015). Through this lab we learned about the role of pancreatic amylase and how this enzyme operates under certain conditions.

Amylase is an enzyme which catalyzes the hydrolysis of starch into carbohydrates. These enzymes are classified into alpha amylases, beta amylases and gamma amylases based on the type of bonding present in the structure. Every amylase is a glucoside hydrolase and acts on α-1,4-glycoside bonds. It comprises about 25 % of enzyme industry due to its wide range of uses. α-amylase are calcium containing enzymes which helps in hydrolyses of α-1,4 glyosidic linkages present in starch of low molecular weight compounds such as glucose, Maltose etc. These enzymes are present in microorganisms, plants, humans and other mammals. In humans it is present in pancreatic juice and saliva.

The human digestive system is like a machine composed of many parts of the body that work together to turn foods and liquids into energy that the body requires to function.

Carbohydrates, a major part of an organism’s diet, contain long and branched chains of glucose. Those glucose monomers are joined through  linkages or  linkages to make up starch. For an organism to extract nutrients and energy, starch has to be broken down into simple sugar molecules such as maltose as shown in Figure 1. Maltose, for example, can then be absorbed into the blood as a small, soluble chemical. For this to occur, starches have to go through two types of digestion, mechanical digestion and chemical digestion. Mechanical digestion is the physical breaking of food into smaller pieces using an organism’s teeth and muscles, while chemical digestion is the breaking of food using acids and enzymes. Since mechanical