Table of Contents
What is the process of starch digestion?
Starch breaks down to shorter glucose chains. This process starts in the mouth with salivary amylase. The process slows in the stomach and then goes into overdrive in the small intestines. The short glucose chains are broken down to maltose and then to glucose.
What reaction is used to digest starch?
Protein digestion occurs in the stomach and the duodenum through the action of three main enzymes: pepsin, secreted by the stomach, and trypsin and chymotrypsin, secreted by the pancreas. During carbohydrate digestion the bonds between glucose molecules are broken by salivary and pancreatic amylase.
What is the product of starch digestion?
Digestion and absorption of carbohydrates Amylase hydrolyzes starch, with the primary end products being maltose, maltotriose, and a -dextrins, although some glucose is also produced.
How is starch broken down to glucose?
An enzyme in your saliva called amylase breaks down starch into glucose, a type of sugar. STEP 3: Spit out the mush onto a clean plate. The amylase should carry on breaking down the starch into sugar, even outside your mouth!
Where does the digestion of starch take place?
Use plastic tubes unless otherwise indicated. Lab Exercise 1: Digestion of Starch by Salivary Amylase The digestion of a carbohydrate such as starch begins in the mouth, where is it mixed with saliva containing the enzyme salivary amylase.
What kind of enzymes are needed for starch digestion?
“Your saliva contains an enzyme called salivary amylase,” says Modell. “This enzyme starts to break apart starches into smaller, more simple carbohydrates,” a process also known as hydrolysis. But because food doesn’t stay in the mouth for very long, these enzymes are only doing preparatory work. The bulk of starch digestion is yet to come.
What makes up the two components of starch?
Starch is a polysaccharide made up of two components, amylose and amylopectin. These two polymers consist of glucose monomers that are joined by glycosidic bonds (see figure below).
How does the small intestine break down polysaccharides?
The brush border of the small intestine releases dextrinase and glucoamylase, both of which slowly break down polysaccharides, chains of saccharide polymers, into oligosaccharides. Pancreatic amylase works to further break down oligosaccharides, which are chains of monosaccharides containing more than two saccharides.