How does hydrolysis relate to digestion

The first activity of the digestive system is to take in food through the mouth. This process, called ingestion , has to take place before anything else can happen.

The large pieces of food that are ingested have to be broken into smaller particles that can be acted upon by various enzymes. This is mechanical digestion, which begins in the mouth with chewing or mastication and continues with churning and mixing actions in the stomach.

The complex molecules of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are transformed by chemical digestion into smaller molecules that can be absorbed and utilized by the cells. Chemical digestion, through a process called hydrolysis , uses water and digestive enzymes to break down the complex molecules.

Final digestion takes place by small intestine enzymes that are embedded in the brush border of the small intestine. The enzymes are divided into endo- and exo-peptidases. Stomach pepsin cleaves the interior bonds of the amino acids, and is particularly important for its ability to digest collagen. This is a major constituent of the connective tissue of meat. In the absence of stomach pepsin, digestion in the small intestine proceeds with difficulty. Hydrolysis of peptide bond : Proteins and polypeptides are digested by hydrolysis of the C—N bond.

Fats are digested by lipases that hydrolyze the glycerol fatty acid bonds. Of particular importance in fat digestion and absorption are the bile salts, which emulsify the fats to allow for their solution as micelles in the chyme, and increase the surface area for the pancreatic lipases to operate.

Lipases are found in the mouth, the stomach, and the pancreas. Because the lingual lipase is inactivated by stomach acid, it is formally believed to be mainly present for oral hygiene and for its anti-bacterial effect in the mouth.

Gastric lipase is of little importance in humans. Pancreatic lipase accounts for the majority of fat digestion and operates in conjunction with the bile salts. RNA and DNA are hydrolized by the pancreatic enzymes ribonucleases, deoxyribonucleases into nucleic acids, which are further broken down to purine and pyrimidine bases and pentoses, by enzymes in the intestinal mucosa nucleases.

The chemical breakdown of the macromolecules contained in food is completed by various enzymes produced in the digestive system. Protein digestion occurs in the stomach and the duodenum through the action of three primary enzymes:.

These enzymes break down food proteins into polypeptides that are then broken down by various exopeptidases and dipeptidases into amino acids. The digestive enzymes, however, are secreted mainly as their inactive precursors, the zymogens. Thus, trypsin is secreted by the pancreas in the form of trypsinogen, which is activated in the duodenum by enterokinase to form trypsin. What organs are affected by diverticulitis? What are the names of the tissue layers of the stomach?

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