Question

After reading the paragraph below, answer the question that follows

Your first big biology exam is coming up in a few days, and in order to prepare for late-night study sessions, you buy a box of Yummies, a delicious type of snack cake After checking out the nutrition facts label on the side of the box, you discover that a single Yummie cake contains 4.5 grams of total fat, 27 grams of carbohydrate, 0 grams of fiber, and 1 gram of protein.
The pH of the stomach is extremely acidic (-pH 2) If you ate a Yummie cake, what do you think would happen to the protein that you ingested as it passe through the stomach?
A. The protein would speed up digestion because it is an enzyme
B. The protein would get broken down via dehydration reactions
C. The protein would become denatured due to the acidic environment
D. The protein would form longer proteins via dehydration reactions

Answer 1

The ingested protein from the Yummie cake would become denatured in the acidic environment of the stomach and would be broken down into smaller components by the enzyme pepsin. So the correct option is C.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a Yummie cake, which contains protein, is ingested, it passes through the highly acidic environment of the stomach. This results in the denaturation of proteins due to the low pH, which is created by the presence of hydrochloric acid (HCl). The main digestive enzyme in the stomach, pepsin, works optimally in this acidic environment to break down proteins into smaller polypeptides and amino acids. Therefore, the correct answer to what would happen to the protein as it passes through the stomach is:

C. The protein would become denatured due to the acidic environment.

The acidic environment of the stomach helps in killing many microorganisms and combined with pepsin, it facilitates the catabolic process of protein digestion.

Answer 2

The correct answer is option C. "The protein would become denatured due to the acidic environment".

Step-by-step explanation:

Under acidic conditions the ionizable groups of the amino acids of the proteins are ionized due to the high protons content. This condition cause that protein lost its native structure and become unfolded and denatured. The acidic environment of the stomach will have this effect on the gram of proteins that have the Yummie cake, becoming denatured once it passes through the stomach.