Post procedente del blog del profesor ciencias naturales en inglés del IES Pedro de Luna Fernando Gómez ( www.biodeluna.wordpress.com)
This week we had the lab practice to proof the presence and action of salivary amylase and the effect of pH.
The previous concepts needed were: Starch / Amylase / Iodine test
- Starch (or amylum) is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together.
- Amylase is an enzyme that breaks starch down into sugar. Amylase is present in human saliva, where it begins the chemical process of digestion. Amylase splits starch to maltose.
- The Iodine test is used to test for the presence of starch.
Iodine solution (or lugol) reacts with starch producing a blue black color.
In the picture you can see two test tubes with the different iodine test results: positive (black) and negative (some orange)