By the end of this chapter, students should be able to: Describe essential nutrients Describe the mechanism of feeding

ng Describe intracellular vs extracellular digestion Describe structures of alimentary-canal related organs State and explain the four stages of digestion in human mechanical vs chemical digestion including hormonal control Differentiate the variation in vertebrate digestive system

SUSPENSION FEEDER - Sieve small food particles from water - Eg: Whales, Clams and oysters

Substrate feeder - Animals that live in / on their food source and eat their way through the food - eg : Leaf-miner caterpillar

Fluid feeders - Suck nutrient-rich fluid from a living host. - eg: Mosquito, aphids

Bulk Feeders - Eat relatively large pieces of food (swallow altogether) - Spend a long time to digest their food - e.g. two weeks

Intracellular digestion : - Happens in cells that possess food vacuole - e.g. protist, sponges Extracellular digestion Breakdown of food in specific compartments ( saclike or tubelike) - In higher animals e.g. hydra, annelids, arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, mammals

Crop : pouch like organ in which food is usually softened, moistened and stored temporarily. Gizzards : are more muscular than crops where they can actively churn and grind the food (Physical fragmentation). - often contains teeth or grit to assist in grinding. Mechanical and chemical digestion happens in the stomach. Birds have a stomach in between their crop and gizzard.

Alimentary canal mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine ii. Accessory digestive organs teeth, tongue, salivary glands, gallbladder, liver, and pancreas
I.

There are FOUR essential activities:

Ingestion

Digestion (mechanical & chemical)

Absorption Defecation GI is a disassembly line - nutrients become more available to the body in each step.

Process of taking food into the digestive tract - Chewing also mix up food with saliva that help in the digestion process - Mechanical digestion : chewing, mixing and churning (agitating) food

Salivary gland - Produce and secrete saliva that:

Cleanses the mouth Moistens and dissolves food

3 pairs of extrinsic glands parotid, submandibular, and sublingual

chemicals Aids in bolus formation Contains enzymes that break down starch

Human teeth suit their omnivorous lifestyle. They are simply carnivorous at their mouth front by having cuspids and incisors. Behind the cuspids are two premolars and three molars used for grinding and crushing food.

Carnivorous animals have pointed teeth that lack flat grinding surfaces which are adapted for cutting and shearing. Herbivores have large flat teeth for pulverizing the cellulose cell before digesting it.

The palate - a hard surface for the tongue to press the food in order to mix with the saliva. As for the tongue, it equipped with taste buds to help us taste the food, the tongue helps shaped it into a bolus.

Tongue pushes bolus to the back of the oral cavity and into the pharynx. The larynx moves upward causing the epiglottis to close the tracheal opening. At the same time, esophageal sphincter relaxes and allows the bolus to enter the esophagus. After swallowing, the larynx moves downward to its original position and the tracheal passage reopens

Esophagus a muscular tube that conveys boluses from the pharynx to the stomach. From esophagus to the anal canal the walls of the GI tract have the same 4 tunics : mucosa, submucosa, muscularis externa, and serosa

At esophagus, peristalsis - a wavelike contraction that squeezes a bolus downwards to the stomach The movement of food is controlled by a sphincter. Both layers of muscularis externa contract involuntarily, meaning that whenever one muscle layer contract the other one relax. This causes the peristalsis process to happen and brings the bolus to the stomach.

The stomach is convoluted, enabling it to fold up when empty and open out like an expanding balloon whenever it is full of food. Stomach has 3 important functions
1. To store ingested foods 2. The secretion helps dissolve

Chyme leaves the stomach through the pyloric sphincter to enter the small intestine.

and break down food particles especially protein 3. Help control the passage of food into the small intestines

The small intestine have 3 parts : duodenum, jejunum and ileum. Duodenum receives acidic chyme from the stomach, digestive enzymes and bicarbonate from the pancreas and bile from the liver and gallbladder. The epithelial wall of the small intestine is covered villi. Villi have many cytoplasmic extensions called the microvilli - increases the surface area of the small intestine that helps in the absorption process.

Colon is shorter than the small intestine but with a larger diameter. No digestion takes place BUT 4% of fluid absorption happens here. undigested material is compacted and storedwill be driven by peristalsis from the large intestine into a short tube called rectum.

2 sphincters control passage to the anus:

i) composed of smooth muscles that open involuntarily in response to pressure inside the rectum. ii) composed of striated muscle that can be controlled by the brain.

Bacterial fermentation happens at the colon and produces gases.

The salivary amylase enzyme begins hydrolyzing starch in the food. Salivary amylase will turn starch to oligosaccharide and disaccharide (maltose)

The stomach secretes gastric juice made of mucus, enzymes and strong acid (pH 2). 3 types of cells in the stomach:

i) Mucus cells - lubricating and protecting stomachs cell lining from the acidity of the gastric juice. ii) Chief cells secrete pepsinogen (inactive form of pepsin) iii) Parietal cells secrete strong acid (HCl)

All these cells are situated at the gastric glands

Acid (HCL) converts pepsinogen to pepsin. Pepsin will digest protein into smaller polypeptides- easy to undergo further digestion in the small intestine. Contraction of the muscles in stomach aids chemical digestion. The stomach will mix the food boluses with the gastric juice, forming a mixture called acid chyme.

The sphincters in the stomach are always closed. The cardiac orifice will only open if bolus enters (if not heartburn) Pyloric sphincter causes the chyme to enter the small intestine one squirt at a time (2-6 hours)

Movement of chyme is aided by peristalsis

Consists of the pancreas, liver and gallbladder.

The pancreas secreted pancreatic fluid. The pancreatic fluid contains hydrolytic enzymes :

I. trypsin and chymotrypsin (protein digestion) II. pancreatic amylase (carbohydrate digestion) III. lipase (fat digestion)

The enzymes are released as inactive enzymes called zymogens which will then be activated by the brush border enzymes of the small intestine. Pancreatic fluid also contains bicarbonate that function in neutralizing the HCl from the stomach.

Liver secreted bile which is a mixture of bile pigments and bile salts. The bile pigments (by-products of red blood cell destruction) did not participate in the digestion process. It is eliminated with feces. Bile salts will play an important role in fat digestion (emulsification process).

Gallbladder functions in storage and concentration of bile salts. The arrival of fatty food to the duodenum triggers a reflex causing contraction and injection of gallbladder to the duodenum

4 hormones altogether
i. Gastrin ii. Cholecytoskinin (CCK) iii. Secretin iv. Enterogastrone

Gastrin (from stomach) - stimulates the production of gastric juice CCK (from duodenum) - stimulates the release of digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile salts from the bladder Secretin (from duodenum) - stimulates the release of bicarbonate from the pancreas Enterogastrone (from duodenum) - inhibits peristalsis and acid secretion from the stomach slowing digestion of fat

The epithelial lining of the small intestine is called the brush border that released enzymes. Some enzymes are secreted into the lumen Chyme entering the duodenum will trigger the release of pancreatic juice. The enzymes in the pancreatic juice break down carbohydrates, proteins, fats and nucleic acids

1. For protein digestion Trypsin Chymotrypsin

protein
Carboxypeptidase Aminopeptidase Dipeptidase Small polypeptides

Small polypeptides

Brush border enzyme Amino acids

Pancreatic amylase Polysaccharides Disaccharidase Disaccharides Di/monosaccharides Brush border Monosaccharides

Pancreatic nucleases DNA and RNA Nucleotides

Intestinal nucleases Brush Border Nucleotides Bases/Sugar

Bile salts Fat globules Pancreatic Lipase Fat droplets Fatty acids and glycerol Fat droplets (Emulsified)

For fat digestion - emulsification happens in the small intestine(accelerating fat digestion). Fats are insoluble In the chyme, they will clump to form fat globules. As the fat globules move in the intestinal wall, the movement of the muscle layers breaks apart the fat globules into small droplets that get with bile salts.

Bile salts are negatively charged so the droplets repel each other (separated with each other) and form an emulsion. Emulsion droplets - give fat digesting enzyme lipase a greater surface area to act on. By the time peristalsis has moved the chyme mixture through the duodenum, chemical digestion of our meal is just about to complete.

For fats, from the lacteals they will travel to the lymphatic system that will drain to large veins As for carbohydrate, protein, nucleic acids and glycerol, they were taken away from the villi to the hepatic portal vein that leads to the liver for regulation of homeostatic processes.

Absorption: via co transport with Na+, and facilitated diffusion Enter the capillary bed (blood vessels) in the villi Transported to the liver via the hepatic portal vein Enzymes used: salivary amylase, pancreatic amylase, and brush border enzymes like dissacharidase

Absorption: Active transport Enzymes used: - pepsin in the stomach - Pancreatic enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin ( in small intestine) - Brush border enzymes aminopeptidases, carboxypeptidases, and dipeptidases Also transported to hepatic portal vein (to liver)

Absorption: Diffusion of micelles (fatty acid, monoglyceride and bile salts) into intestinal cells where they: - Combine to form triglycerides called chylomicrons - Enter lacteals and are transported to systemic circulation via lymph Enzymes/chemicals used: bile salts and pancreatic lipase

Absorption: active transport via membrane carriers Absorbed in villi and transported to liver via hepatic portal vein Enzymes used: pancreatic ribonucleases and intestinal deoxyribonuclease in the small intestines

Carnivores usually have large expandable stomach because it is harder for them to catch prey. They can consume 40kg of meat at a time (a lion) They have shorter alimentary canal because it is easier to digest meat as compared to vegetation.

Most herbivores lack enzyme that digest cellulose in the vegetation cell wall, so they depend on microorganisms role to aid in their digestion. Ruminants such as cows, deer and other herbivores, they have multiple stomach chambers in which cellulose is slowly broken down.

The first chamber contains of a rumen and a smaller chamber called recticulum and the second portion consists of two additional chambers called the omasum and abomasum. The breakdown of cellulose in tough plant cell walls happens in the first and second stomach chamber where bacterial symbionts release digestive enzymes to digest the nutrients in cellulose.

The cow will regurgitates and rechews the contents of the first sac before swallowing again. This process is called rumination - exposes more surface area for the enzymes to react, resulting in more nutrients to be released for the hosts benefit. At omasum water is absorbed At abomasum - digestion is carried out by the cow's own enzyme. Absorption completed here.

The ingested litter is called cecotropes and rabbits need to ingest it to avoid malnutrition. The fecal pellets are dry, consist of undigested fiber compared to the mucus-coated cecotropes