A Study On Molecular Reactions

Enzymes are proteins produced by living organisms to speed up a chemical reaction in the body. Enzymes are important because they are needed to start chemical reactions and to break down harmful substances. Enzymes work by first binding to a specific substrate. They bind on the active site. They then form a complex and react.

Of the many functions of proteins, catalysis is by far the most vital. When catalysis is not present, most reactions in the biological systems take place very slowly to produce at an adequate pace for metabolising organism. The catalysts that take this role are called enzymes. Enzymes are the most efficient catalysts; they can enhance rate of reaction by up to 1020 over uncatalysed reactions. (Campbell et al, 2012).

Enzymes are types of proteins that work as a substance to help speed up a chemical reaction (Madar & Windelspecht, 104). There are three factors that help enzyme activity increase in speed. The three factors that speed up the activity of enzymes are concentration, an increase in temperature, and a preferred pH environment. Whether or not the reaction continues to move forward is not up to the enzyme, instead the reaction is dependent on a reaction’s free energy. These enzymatic reactions have reactants referred to as substrates. Enzymes do much more than create substrates; enzymes actually work with the substrate in a reaction (Madar &Windelspecht, 106). For reactions in a cell it is

Lab six requires students to observe the effects of pH and enzyme concentration on catecholase activity. Enzymes are organic catalysts that can affect the rate of a chemical reaction depending on the pH level and the concentration of the enzyme. As pH comes closer to a neutral pH the enzyme is at its greatest effectiveness. Also at the absorbance of a slope of 0.0122 the enzyme is affected greatly. The pH effect on enzymes can be tested by trying each pH level with a pH buffer of the same pH as labeled as the test tube and 1mL of potato juice, water, and catechol. This is all mixed together and put in the spectrophotometer to test how much is being absorbed at 420nm. As the effect on enzyme concentration can be tested almost the same way. This part of the exercise uses different amounts of pH 7-phosphate buffer and potato juice, and 1mL of catechol mixed together in a test tube. Each substance is put in the spectrophotometer at a wavelength set tot 420nm. The results are put down for every minute up to six minutes to see how enzyme concentration affects reaction rate. The results show that the pH 8 (0.494) affects the enzyme more than a pH of 4 (0.249), 6 (0.371), 7 (0.456), and 10 (0.126). Also the absorbance is greatest at a slope of 0.0122 with test tube C that has more effect on the reaction rate, than test tube A, B, and D.

1. We measured 2 mL of diluted hydrogen peroxide (the substrate), 1 mL of guaiacol (the product indicator), and 1 mL of neutral buffer (pH 7) with a syringe and disposed it into tubes 1, 2 , 4, 9, 11, and 12.

Living cells within our bodies perform an abundance of chemical reactions very speedily because of the participation of enzymes. Enzymes are biological catalysts that speed up a chemical reaction without being depleted or altered in the reaction (Garrette & Grisham, 1999). The

An Enzyme is a protein, which is capable of starting a chemical reaction, which involves the formation or breakage of chemical bonds. A substrate is the surface or material on or from which an organism lives, grows, or obtains its nourishment. In this case it is hydrogen peroxide. This lab report will be explaining the experiment held to understand the effects of the changes in the amount of substrate on the enzyme’s reaction.

Enzymes are a key aspect in our everyday life and are a key to sustaining life. They are biological catalysts that help speed up the rate of reactions. They do this by lowering the activation energy of chemical reactions (Biology Department, 2011).

Catalysis They serve as enzymatic catalysts that speed up biochemical reactions while remaining unchanged in the process. Without these biological catalysts, chemical reactions would occur so slowly that life as we know it could not exist. With them, chemical reactions can occur at rates as much as 10 billion times faster than would be possible without enzymes. Enzymes are critical to digestion and metabolism, they are required to release nutrients from foods so they can be absorbed and utilized by the body.

Enzyme Kinetics and Protein Determination: How Enzyme Catalase Concentration Affects Reaction Rate and Determining the Identity of Unknown Proteins through Absorbance

Organisms cannot depend solely on spontaneous reactions for the production of materials because they occur slowly and are not responsive to the organism's needs (Martineau, Dean, et al, Laboratory Manual, 43). In order to speed up the reaction process, cells use enzymes as biological catalysts. Enzymes are able to speed up the reaction through lowering activation energy. Additionally, enzymes facilitate reactions without being consumed (manual,43). Each enzyme acts on a specific molecule or set of molecules referred to as the enzyme's substrate and the results of this reaction are called products (manual 43). As a result, enzymes promote a reaction so that substrates are converted into products on a faster pace (manual 43). Most enzymes are proteins whose structure is determined by its sequence of its amino acids. Enzymes are designed to function the best under physiological conditions of PH and temperature. Any change of these variables that change the conformation of the enzyme will destroy or enhance enzyme activity(manual, 43).

Enzymes are central to every biochemical process. Due to their high specificity they are capable of catalyzing hundreds of reactions that signifies their vast practical importance.

There are thousands of chemical reactions that occur in an organism that make life possible. Most of these chemical reactions occur too slowly on their own. Enzymes are protein catalysts that speed up chemical reactions in a cell. Catalysts are not changed by the reactions they control, and are not used up during the reaction. Enzymes therefore, can be used over and over again. Enzymes are large complex proteins made by the cell and allow chemical reactions to take place at the temperature of the cell. These catalysts are needed in only very small amounts because a single enzyme molecule can complete the same reaction thousands of times in one minute.

In this experiment, NaOH was the inhibitor used to stop the enzymatic reactions. NaOH is very basic and when added to a solution, will cause a drastic increase in pH, causing denaturation of the enzyme. The amount of product formed could be calculated by placing the test tube in a spectrometer after the addition on NaOH. A spectrometer measures the absorbance of a solution, which helps compare how much of a substance is in a solution.

Several reactions that occur within a cell have a high activation energy. This means that the reaction needs a great deal of energy input to perform the reaction properly. A result of this is the reaction not occurring, due to the fact that the reactants don’t possess enough energy to overcome the high activation energy needed for the reaction. In order to combat this deficiency, enzymes are used to catalyze many chemical reactions in biological systems. As can be seen in Figure 3, the amount of reactions that could hypothetically occur without an enzyme are to the right of the blue line. Whereas, with the assistance of an enzyme, the reactions that could hypothetically occur are to the right of the red line. Enzymes lower the activation of