Question

Explain the process of digestion in Amoeba.

Answer 1

Amoeba shows the holozoic nutrition. It means that the Amoeba consumes the whole food through the endocytosis and digests the food inside the cell within the food vacuole. The digestion process can be describes as :

1. Ingestion- Amoeba moves towards the food by making pseudopodia. The pseudopodia surround the food particle and fuse to form the food vacuole, which is then taken inside the cytoplasm.

2. Digestion- The food vacuole is combined with lysosomes that contain the hydrolytic enzymes. These enzymes perform the breakdown of food particles.

3. Absorption- The digested food is then absorbed directly into the cytoplasm from where it will be distributed to the different organelles.

4. Assimilation- The absorbed food is used for the generation of energy. The excess amount is stored in the form of glycogen and lipids in the cytoplasm.

5. Excretion- The undigested food in the food vacuole is excreted out of the cell as the food vacuole fuses with the cell membrane and perform exocytosis.