Name: Group 7a

Exercise 8: Chemical and Physical Processes of Digestion: Activity 3: Assessing Pepsin Digestion of Protein Lab Report
Pre-lab Quiz Results
You scored 100% by answering 5 out of 5 questions correctly.
1. Where in the body does protein digestion begin?
You correctly answered: b. the stomach
2. The substrate for pepsin is
You correctly answered: d. protein and peptides.
3. In this activity the substrate you will be using to detect protein digestion is
You correctly answered: d. BAPNA.
4. Negative results with the negative controls
You correctly answered: d. are expected and validate the experiment.
5. A spectrophometer measures
You correctly answered: c. optical density.

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Experiment Results
Predict Question:
Predict Question: At which pH do you think pepsin will have the highest activity?
Your answer : c. pH 9.0
Stop & Think Questions:
Which of the following tubes are negative control tubes?
You correctly answered: e. tubes 3 and 4
An optical density greater than zero indicates that
You correctly answered: e. BAPNA digestion has occurred and pepsin is active.
Experiment Data:
Tube No.

Reagent 1

Reagent 2

Reagent 3

Boiled

Time

Temp.

1
2
3
4
5
6

Pepsin
Pepsin
Pepsin
DeIonized Water
Pepsin
Pepsin

BAPNA
BAPNA
DeIonized Water
BAPNA
BAPNA
BAPNA

pH 2.0 Buffer
pH 2.0 Buffer
pH 2.0 Buffer
pH 2.0 Buffer
pH 7.0 Buffer
pH 9.0 Buffer

+
-

60
60
60
60
60
60

37
37
37
37
37
37

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Optical
Density
0.00
0.40
0.00
0.00
0.03
0.00

Post-lab Quiz Results

You scored 100% by answering 4 out of 4 questions correctly.
1. Pepsin would be most active
You correctly answered: b. in the stomach.
2. Which two tubes validated the results of the experiment?
You correctly answered: c. tubes 3 and 4
3. With more enzyme activity the optical density
You correctly answered: a. increased.
4. If pepsin were digesting an actual protein substrate, the product would be
You correctly answered: c. peptides and amino acids.

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Review Sheet Results

1. Describe the effect that boiling had on pepsin and how you could tell that it had that effect.
Your answer:
Pepsin activity break up ingested proteins and polypeptides into smaller peptide chains and free amino acids, therefore the
zero optical density.
2. Was your prediction correct about the optimal pH for pepsin activity? Discuss the physiological correlation behind your
results.
Your answer:
pH has an influence on the activity of the enzyme pepsin. It correlates with our prediction.
3. What do you think would happen if you reduce the incubation time to 30 minutes for tube 5?
Your answer:
It does not absorb the light and will have an optical density near zero.

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