Question

The student then repeated this same experiment using a glass tube containing potato instead of egg. He found no evidence of any digestion after 48 hours. Using one or more complete sentences, why no digestion occurred.

Answer 1

Digestion of the potato did not occur because the appropriate enzyme, amylase, or the correct conditions for it to function were not present in the experiment.

Step-by-step explanation:

No digestion of the potato in the glass tube occurred because the necessary enzymes or conditions for potato digestion were likely not present in the experiment. Potatoes mainly consist of starch, which requires amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch into sugars, to initiate digestion. If the experimental conditions did not contain amylase or the pH was not optimum for its activity, digestion would not occur. Different biological materials require specific digestive enzymes to break down their primary macromolecules; for potatoes, the key molecule is starch, unlike proteins which are digested by pepsin in the stomach.