The Digestive Processes

Animal diets vary enormously, and so do the methods of feeding. Certain parasites, e.g.
tapeworms that lack a mouth or digestive canal absorb food through their body surface. In
contrast, the majority of the animals ingest their food by means of a mouth. After the food
has been digested by mechanical and chemical means, it is absorbed and utilised.

Heterotrophs and Autotrophs

Animal feeders can be divided into autotrophs and heterotrophs.
Autotrophs are primitive organisms that first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago and
colonised the earth for the next 2 billion years. They are mainly bacteria and green algae
(cyanobacteria).Some autotrophs manufacture their food from inorganic compounds while
others do so by photosynthesis.
Heterotrophs consist of most of the bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and multicellular animals. They
all feed on ready-made food substances from plant or animal sources.
Heterotrophs are divided into herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. Herbivore feed on
plants while carnivores are meat eaters. The omnivores feed on plants and flesh. Man is a
good example of an omnivore.
Saprophytic Digestion
The simplest heterotrophic digestion is that of the fungi and bacteria and is known as
saprophytic digestion. In this type of digestion, food is digested outside the body with the
aid of enzymes released by the saprophytes. The digested food is then absorbed into the
body through the surface. The food is usually a decaying vegetable matter such as a loaf of
bread or a rotting animal. Saprophytic digestion is extracellular because it occurs outside
the cells.
Intracellular Digestion
Phagocytosis
Like the fungi, Amoeba lacks a gut although it has an intracellular digestion. Amoeba engulfs
its food particles by means of extensions of the cytoplasm called pseudopodia.

The engulfed particle ends up in a food vacuole within the cytoplasm where it is broken
down by the actions of enzymes secreted by the Amoeba. The process of capturing food by
the pseudopodia and engulfing it is called phagocytosis.
Incomplete Digestive System
The Gastrovascular Cavity (an incomplete digestive system)
The simplest form of a digestive organ is the gastrovascular cavity possessed by the Hydra.
A gastrovascular cavity has only one opening which serves as a mouth and as an anus. The
Hydra captures its prey using tentacles that ring its mouth region.

11. What is an antibiotic?

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12. Give one example of an antibiotic and name the organism that makes it:

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13. What is the name of the liquid inside the fermenter that the microorganisms grow in?

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14. What is needed by a the microorganism inside the fermenter?

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15. What causes the fungus to release heat energy?

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16. How does the fermenter keep the temperature stable?

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17. What other important factor is controlled inside the fermenter?

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18. Why is it important to keep stirring the medium?

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The Oesophagus
The oesophagus or gullet is a tube that connects the mouth to the stomach. It is lined by a
thin epithelium with no villi, a few mucus-secreting glands and a thick muscular tissue that
contracts and relaxes propelling the food down the oesophagus to the stomach. This
muscular contraction is known as peristalsis. It occurs throughout the digestive canal.
The Stomach
The stomach is an elastic bag that can store food for a few hours. Its wall consists of three
layers of muscles that contract and mix up the food contents. The mixing up of the food by
the stomach is known as churning and turns food into porridge-like liquid called chyme.
The chyme is released gradually into the small intestine via a sphincter, a region of thick
circular muscle that acts as a valve.
 The stomach contains gastric glands that produce gastric juice. Hydrochloric acid produced
by the oxynthic cells helps kill bacteria and provide the acidic medium for digestion in the
stomach. The parietal cells produce pepsin, which digests proteins. Mucus produced by the
goblet cells lubricates the stomach and protects it from the corrosive effects of stomach
enzymes.
The Duodenum
This is the first part of the small intestine and is about 30 cm long. Most of the digestion
takes place in the duodenum due to the secretions of the pancreas. The pancreas through
the pancreatic duct secretes enzymes that digest carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. Bile
secreted by the liver and stored in the gall bladder is released through the bile duct into the
duodenum. Bile is alkaline due to hydrogen bicarbonate and therefore neutralises
hydrochloric acid produced in the stomach. It also helps digestion by emulsifying lipids. The
bile duct and the pancreatic duct join just before they enter the duodenum.
 The Ileum
The longest part of the intestine is the small intestine, which is the site of final digestion
and absorption. The small intestine contains numerous glands that secrete enzymes, sodium
bicarbonate and mucus. Its surface is not only folded it also has microvilli and villi that
increase its surface area enormously, providing ideal conditions for food absorption.

The Large Intestine

The large intestine consists of the caecum, appendix, ascending colon, transverse colon,
descending colon and rectum. The large intestine is mainly concerned with water absorption
so that faeces is expelled in a semi-solid form. The faeces is made up of plant fibre (mainly
cellulose), cholesterol, bile, mucus, cell debris, bacteria and water. It is ejected from the
body by the anal sphincter.
Chemical Digestion
1. Carbohydrates
By far the most abundant carbohydrate in human diet is starch but there may also be
some sucrose and glycogen from meat. Salivary amylase acts on starch reducing it to
maltose. Most of the amylase is, however, denatured in the stomach so that much of the
starch remains undigested.
The pancreas produces pancreatic amylase, which completes the digestion of starch in the
duodenum, converting it to maltose. Glycogen is also digested here. Disaccharidases
produced by the small intestine break down disaccharides such as maltose, sucrose and
lactose into monosaccharides. The major monosaccharides are glucose, fructose and
galactose. These are absorbed by active transport in the ileum epithelium, where they
diffuse into the blood capillaries of the villi. Other carbohydrates such as cellulose,
hemicellulose and lignin that the human system cannot digest, are excreted in the faeces as
fibre.
2. Proteins
Rennin, produced by infant mammals and present in the gastric juice, converts the soluble
milk protein casein into its insoluble calcium salt. This keeps longer in the stomach so that
pepsin can digest it. Pepsin digests polypeptides to peptides (6-12 amino acids long). Pepsin
is an endopeptidase, which hydrolyses peptide bonds in the middle of a polypeptide chain.
Pepsin works best at an optimum pH of 2. Other pancreatic endopeptidases continue the
digestion of peptides in the duodenum converting them to smaller molecules.
Exopeptidases produced by the epithelial cells in the ileum complete the digestion of the
short peptides to individual amino acids. Exopeptidases remove amino acids one by one
from the ends of peptide chains. Carboxypeptidases work from the C-terminal end,
aminopeptidases work from the N-terminal end, and dipeptidases cut dipeptides in half.
Amino acids are absorbed by active transport into the epithelial cells of the ileum where
they diffuse into the capillary vessels of the villi.
3. Lipids
Fats are emulsified by bile salts into fat droplets called micelles that have large surface
area. The pancreas produces enzyme lipase, which digests triglycerides to fatty acids and
glycerols in the duodenum. Fatty acids and glycerols easily cross the epithelial membranes
of the cells of the ileum where the triglycerides are resynthesised and combine with proteins
to form tiny lipoprotein particles called chylomicrons. These chylomicrons diffuse into the
lacteal vessel into the lacteal (lymph) vessel inside each villus. They are then transported
via the lymph and join the blood stream through the vena cava. They are stored in the body
as adipose tissue.
4. Water
Water is absorbed by osmosis in the large intestine.
Adaptation of the Digestive System to Diet
The length of the digestive system of an animal tells us something about the diet of that
animal. Thus, herbivores have long digestive systems relative to their body size than
carnivores. This is because they feed on plant material, which needs more time to digest
and extract nutrients. Most herbivores have special chambers that host bacteria and
protozoa, which convert cellulose to simple sugars.
On the other hand, carnivores have short digestive systems because they eat flesh, which
is easy to digest.

Digestion in Caecum and Colon

In some herbivores such as rabbits and rodents, the cellulose-digesting microbes are
housed in the colon and caecum where absorption of nutrients also takes place. Digestion in
this region of the digestive system is less efficient because some of the nutrients are
excreted as faeces before they have been digested properly. These animals eat their faces
and digest it once more in order to reclaim some of the nutrients.
Digestion in Ruminants
Ruminants like goat, sheep and cows have four chambers in their stomachs. This is again
an adaptation to the digestion of a predominantly cellulose diet. When the animal chews and
swallows grass, the food goes to the rumen and then to the reticulum. In both chambers,
the food is digested by symbiotic bacteria. The animal regurgitates some of the semi-
digested food and chews it again. This chewing of the cud, as the process is known, softens
the food and help break down the fibres,
Finally, the food passes into the omasum and enters the abomasum where the animal’s
enzymes complete the digestion. The large bacterial population in the ruminant digestive
system is a major source of protein to the host.
 Control of Digestive Enzymes
Secretion of the digestive juices is controlled by a number of factors including smell, taste
and hormones. The presence of food in the mouth will stimulate the production of saliva and
gastric juices. The presence of food in the stomach will stimulate the production of a
hormone called gastrin by the stomach. Similarly, the release of a hormone called
cholecystokinin (CCK) by the duodenum is triggered by the presence of amino acids and
fatty acids in the duodenum. Another hormone, secretin, produced by the duodenal cells,
stimulates the pancreas to produce the pancreatic juice and NaHCO 3.