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Catalase In Avocado And Cantaloupe

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Introduction Enzymes are catalysts that help promote chemical reactions by integrating or breaking apart biological molecules. Most metabolic processes in the cell need enzymes to occur at rates quick enough to sustain life. Because enzymes are particular with what substances they choose to speed up, they only affect a tiny percentage of all the possible reactions. The group of enzymes made in a cell determine which metabolic pathway is selected. Enzymes are critical to the human body, specifically the body’s metabolism system. The metabolic system is a long series of continuous chemical reactions, and these catalysts boost efficiency and effect (Audesirk, Byers 99-102). Every enzyme affects a particular and specific part of the system, and …show more content…

We compared the amount of catalase in avocados and cantaloupes through the catalase reaction rate. We extracted enzymes, and tested rates of reaction with different levels of substrate strengths. The fruit with the faster rate of reaction proves which has more catalase; avocados or cantaloupes (Christianson 49-55). Because of our previous lab test with the potatoes, we believed that the closer the fruit or vegetable was to the ground, the more catalase it would have. With this idea in mind, the hypothesis we formed was that cantaloupe, as it grows closer to the ground, would possess more catalase than avocado, creating a faster reaction rate in the …show more content…

We created solutions of different concentrations of the substrate, hydrogen peroxide. The concentrations included 0%, which was 4 mL of plain water, .125%, .25%, .5%, 1%, 3%, and 6% hydrogen peroxide. To keep outside factors, such as temperature, from affecting the results of the enzymatic rate of reaction, we kept the two enzyme solutions in ice, and had each of the substrate solutions in room temperature. The 0% substrate solution acted as the control group, measuring what happens with the filter paper if there is no substrate. The rate of reaction was measured by taking bits of the same size Whatman #1 filter paper, by using a hole punch, dipping it in the enzyme solution for two seconds, letting the excess soak into a paper towel, and putting the paper into the substrate solutions. As the filter paper first touched the water, we started timing to measure how long it would take for the paper to lift from the bottom of the glass. We did this with both the cantaloupe and avocado, twice each, to have two trials for each percentage of each solution. We then took the average of both tests and found the rate of reaction by dividing one over the average of the rate of reaction for each

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