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Amylase may be measured in other body fluids, including urine and peritoneal fluid. A January 2007 study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that saliva tests of the enzyme could be used to indicate sleep deficits , as the enzyme increases its activity in correlation with the length of time a subject has been deprived of sleep.
α-Amylase is an enzyme (EC 3.2.1.1; systematic name 4-α-D-glucan glucanohydrolase) that hydrolyses α bonds of large, α-linked polysaccharides, such as starch and glycogen, yielding shorter chains thereof, dextrins, and maltose, through the following biochemical process: [2]
Also of importance is the presence in saliva of the digestive enzymes amylase and lipase. Amylase starts to work on the starch in carbohydrates, breaking it down into the simple sugars of maltose and dextrose that can be further broken down in the small intestine. Saliva in the mouth can account for 30% of this initial starch digestion.
Though one's body produces peptides naturally, peptides are also found in many food and supplement sources. "All the food we eat is broken down by the body into amino acids," explains Stevenson.
Saliva consists of mucus and serous fluid; the serous fluid contains the enzyme amylase, which is important for the digestion of carbohydrates. Minor salivary glands of von Ebner present on the tongue secrete the lipase. The parotid gland produces purely serous saliva. The other major salivary glands produce mixed (serous and mucus) saliva.
β-amylase catalyses the hydrolysis of starch into maltose by the process of removing successive maltose units from the non-reducing ends of the chains. γ-Amylase will cleave the last α(1–4)glycosidic linkages at the nonreducing end of amylose and amylopectin , yielding glucose.
Pancreatic juice is a liquid secreted by the pancreas, [1] which contains a number of digestive enzymes, including trypsinogen, chymotrypsinogen, elastase, carboxypeptidase, pancreatic lipase, nucleases and amylase.
Pancreatic alpha-amylase is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the AMY2A gene. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] Amylases are secreted proteins that hydrolyze 1,4-alpha-glucoside bonds in oligosaccharides and polysaccharides, and thus catalyze the first step in digestion of dietary starch and glycogen.