Biology Notes

For enzymes to be useful in a reaction, the substrate needs to bind with the enzymes active site. The active site is specific for a

Inhibitors - As mentioned earlier, enzymes have an active site specific to the substrate molecules. However, it is possible for other molecules similar to enzyme's substrate to bind with the enzyme's active site and therefore, inhibit the enzyme's task.

Hypothesis: I believe the rate of reaction will speed up as the temperature increases until it reaches about 37oC, which is the body temperature, where it will begin to slow down and stop reacting. I believe this will occur because enzymes have a temperature range at which they work best in and once the temperature goes out of this range the enzyme will stop working.

Note that the enzyme remains unchanged so that more of the some substrates can react.

Enzymes are essentially proteins and will only act in an aqueous environment. An enzyme is specific for a certain reaction or

If different amounts of enzyme solution are added to the hydrogen peroxide, then the highest amount of enzymes will have the greatest reaction rate because enzymes catalyze reactions, meaning more oxygen will be produced quicker.

Most enzymes work best at body temperature, higher temps will cause the enzyme to no longer work properly

3) Adding less enzyme caused the reaction to proceed more slowly than when more enzyme was utilized.

reached. This is an example of a feedback mechanism. Organisms use many feedback mechanisms to

Enzymes have an active site which has a complimentary base to a specific substrate, when these bind an enzyme-substrate complex is

enable the substrate to bind to the enzyme and form the enzyme substrate complex and

This experiment was conducted to investigate the enzymatic activity of the enzyme aldolase by using different urea concentrations. Stronger solutions of denaturant in this case urea were used to increase the polypeptide subunit unfolding and the dissociation of the tetramer.

A chemical reaction requires that bonds in the reactants be broken. The initial energy that must be absorbed in order to break the bonds of the reactant molecule is called the energy of activation. Enzymes work by lowering the energy of activation. For example,

An enzyme is a ‘protein (or in few cases RNAs) that are highly specific for the reactions they catalyze’1 as it is a protein it would consist of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure. The primary structure has a sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide chains, the secondary structure consists of polypeptide chains that are either twisted or coiled – the two common structures are α-helices and ß-pleats. Weak hydrogen bonds hold coils in place and many are formed so it provides overall stability2. The tertiary structure would be the secondary structure being coiled even further being held together by weak hydrogen bonds, disulphide bridges and ionic bonds. The quaternary structure is when there is two or more polypeptide

enzyme reaches a low temperature the reaction rate slows, as an enzymes temperature rises the