Asked by mike

Cells in the pancreas produce many digestive enzymes. Which organelles would be especially abundant in these cells, and why?

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
Pancreatic enzyme-secreting cells would be especially rich in rough endoplasmic reticulum (rER) and Golgi apparatus — and therefore many membrane-bound ribosomes and secretory (zymogen) vesicles.

Why: the digestive enzymes are secreted proteins, so they are synthesized on ribosomes attached to the rER, folded and initialy modified in the rER, further processed and packaged into secretory granules by the Golgi, and released by exocytosis. These cells also have many mitochondria to supply the ATP needed for protein synthesis, processing and secretion.