Lecture 5: Digestion and Absorption in GI tract Flashcards
What are the 2 main paths of absorption in the GI?
1) Cellular: lumen –> Apical membrane –> Intestinal epithelial cell –> basolateral membrane –> blood (transporters in membranes)
2) Paracellular: intestinal epithelial cell –> lateral intercellular space –> intestinal epithelial cell (tight junctions)
What are the enzymes secreted for CHO digestion from the saliva, stomach, pancreas, and intestinal mucosa?
Saliva: Amylase
Stomach: none
Pancreas: Amylase
Intestinal mucosa: Sucrase, maltase, lactase, trehalase, α-dextrinase
What are the enzymes secreted for protein digestion from the saliva, stomach, pancreas, and intestinal mucosa?
Saliva: none
Stomach: pepsin
Pancreas: trypsin, chymotrypsin, carboxypeptidase, elastase
Intestinal mucosa: amino-oligopeptidase, dipeptidase, enterokinase
What are the enzymes secreted for lipid digestion from the saliva, stomach, pancreas, and intestinal mucosa?
Saliva: Lingual lipase
Stomach: Gastric lipase
Pancreas: Lipase-colipase, Phospholipase A2, Cholesterol ester hydrolase
What is cavital (luminal) and membrane (contact) digestive activity?
Cavital (luminal): digestion resulting from the action of enzymes secreted by the salivary glands, stomach, and pancreas
Membrane (contact): hydrolysis by enzymes within the brush border that are synthesize by epithelial cells
What makes the structure of the intestinal mucosa ideal for absorption of large amounts of nutrients?
- Arranged in longitudinal folds (folds of Kerckring)
- Villi and mircovilli increase SA of the small intestine (villi longest in duodenum and shorter in the terminal ileum)
What is the function of enterocytes, turnover rate, and what kind of damage are they susceptible to?
- Digestion, absorption, and secretion
- Turnover rate: cells are replaced every 3-6 days
- Susceptible to irradiation and chemotherapy
What are Goblet cells and what is their function?
- Mucus-secreting cells
- Physical, chemical, and immunologic protection
What is the function of Paneth cells within the intestinal epithelium?
- Part of mucosal defense against pathogens
- Secrete agents that destroy bacteria or produce inflammatory responses
What are the 4 transport mechanisms that the enterocyte membrane uses to control the flux or solutes and fluid between the lumen and blood?
Pinocytosis - at the base of microvilli, major mechanism for uptake of protein
Passive diffusion - particles move through pores in the cell membrane or through intracellular spaces
Facilitated diffusion
Active transport
What are the layers from the luminal side through the enterocyte and then blood that a solute must traverse?
- Unstirred layer of fluid
- Glycocalyx
- Apical membrane
- Cytoplasm of the cell
- Basolateral membrane
- Basement membrane
- Wall of the blood capillary or wall of the capillar of the lymph vessel
What is the site of activity for a numbr of digestive enzymes?
Microvillar surface
The capacity of the intestine to adapt is key in which clinical scenarios?
- Small bowel resection
- Bypass
Adaption is limited in some instances, what will occur if the terminal ileum is resected?
Absroption of vitamin B12 and bile salts in abolished
What do CHO’s need to be broken into for absorbtion; what occurs to the disaccharides trehalose, lactose, and sucrose?
- Monosaccharides (glucose, galactose, fructose)
- Trehalose –(Trehalase)–> glucose + glucose
- Lactose –(Lactase)–> glucose + galactose
- Sucrose –(Sucrase)–> fructose + glucose
How is starch broken down?
- Starch is broken down first by α-amylase into α-dextrins, maltose, or maltotriose.
- α-dextrinase, maltase, and sucrase will further break products down to glucose
How are CHO’s transported from the lumen/apical side into the enterocyte; what type of transport is each?
- Glucose and galactose use SGLT1, Na+ dependent (co-transport)
- Fructose used GLUT 5 (facilitated diffusion)
What are the transporters on the blood/basolateral side for monosaccharides?
- Glucose, fructose, and galactose all use GLUT 2 (faciliated diffusion)
- Also a Na+/K+ ATPase
Where is lactase found and what does a deficiency in this enzyme lead to?
- Brush-border enzyme
- Undigested lactose remains in the lumen and holds H2O, causing osmotic diarrhea
- Undigested/unabsorbed lactose is fermented into methane and gas causing excess flatulence
Where does the digestion of proteins begin w/ the action of what enzyme?
In the stomach with the action of pepsinogen which is secreted by Chief cells and converted to pepsin at low gastric pH
What are the 2 classes of proteases, which enzymes are found within each class, and how are they functionally different?
Endopeptidase - hydrolyze the interior peptide bonds of proteins (pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase)
Exopeptidase - hydrolyze one AA at a time from the C-terminal ends of proteins and peptides (carboxypeptidases A and B)
How does protein digestion continue in the small intestine?
- Trypsinogen secreted by the pancreas is activated to trypsin by the brush border enzyme enterokinase.
- Initially a small amount of trypsin is produced, which then catalyzes the conversion of all the other inactive precursors to their active enzymes (trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidase A and B)
- Trypsin catalyzes the hydrolysis of trypsinogen (autocatalysis) to more trypsin
Protein in the stomach is broken down by pepsin into what?
- AA’s
- Oligopeptides
Protein in the small intestine is broken down by trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidase A/B, and peptidase into what products?
- AA’s, Dipeptides, and Tripeptides by trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase, carboxypeptidase A and B (lumen)
- Oligopeptides which are further broken down by peptidase (brush border) into AA’s, Dipeptides, and Tripeptides