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While foregut fermentation is generally considered more efficient, and monogastric animals cannot digest cellulose as efficiently as ruminants, [5] hindgut fermentation allows animals to consume small amounts of low-quality forage all day long and thus survive in conditions where ruminants might not be able to obtain nutrition adequate for their needs.
Thus, while most microorganisms can assimilate simple monomers, degradation of polymers is specialized, and few organisms can degrade recalcitrant polymers like cellulose and lignin. [16] Each microbial species carries specific combinations of genes for extracellular enzymes and is adapted to degrade specific substrates. [12]
Proteins are the basis of many animal body structures (e.g. muscles, skin, and hair). They also form the enzymes which control chemical reactions throughout the body. Each molecule is composed of amino acids which are characterized by the inclusion of nitrogen and sometimes sulfur. The body requires amino acids to produce new proteins (protein ...
Fermentation is crucial to digestion because it breaks down complex carbohydrates, such as cellulose, and enables the animal to use them. Microbes function best in a warm, moist, anaerobic environment with a temperature range of 37.7 to 42.2 °C (99.9 to 108.0 °F) and a pH between 6.0 and 6.4.
A large percentage of herbivores also have mutualistic gut flora made up of bacteria and protozoans that help to degrade the cellulose in plants, [1] whose heavily cross-linking polymer structure makes it far more difficult to digest than the protein- and fat-rich animal tissues that carnivores eat.
Termites and protists have a symbiotic relationship (e.g. with the protozoan that allows the termites to digest the cellulose in their diet). For example, in one group of termites, a three-way symbiotic relationship exists; termites of the family Rhinotermitidae, cellulolytic protists of the genus Pseudotrichonympha in the guts of these ...
Ribbon representation of the Streptomyces lividans β-1,4-endoglucanase catalytic domain - an example from the family 12 glycoside hydrolases [1]. Cellulase (EC 3.2.1.4; systematic name 4-β-D-glucan 4-glucanohydrolase) is any of several enzymes produced chiefly by fungi, bacteria, and protozoans that catalyze cellulolysis, the decomposition of cellulose and of some related polysaccharides:
Particles less than 0.3-0.5 mm (mainly fermentable fiber and proteins) move to the sides, and then retrograde peristalsis moves them back up the colon and into the cecum. [ 14 ] [ 2 ] [ 17 ] [ 9 ] The ileocecal valve (at the end of the small intestine) ensures the material goes to the cecum and not the small intestine.