Effects of Temperature and pH on Catalase Activity
INTRODUCTION
Enzymes are organic catalysts that spur metabolic reactions. The presence of an enzyme within a cell is essential in order for any sort of reaction to take place. All enzymes are complex proteins that act in an organism's closely controlled internal environment. In such a homeostatic environment, the temperature and the pH (concentration of hydrogen ions), remain within a fairly narrow range. Extreme variations in pH and temperature denature the enzyme by altering its chemical structure, thus adversely affecting the chemical reaction. As even the slightest change in the protein's structure will change the enzyme's shape enough to prevent the formation of the
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Immediately after removing the tubes, hydrogen peroxide was added to each tube up to the second (5 cm) mark. They were then swirled to mix, and after fifteen seconds, the bubble columns in each vile were measured in millimeters, and then recorded in a data table. The procedure for analyzing pH levels was rather different. The three test tubes, marked at three different levels, were each filled to the first mark (1cm) with catalase, and to the second mark (3 cm) with water. However, the pH of the water had been adjusted differently for each vile. The first tube received water adjusted to pH three, the second received water adjusted to pH seven, and third received pH eleven. Consequently, each tube was then filled to the last mark (7 cm) with hydrogen peroxide, swirled to mix and then observed after twenty seconds. After twenty seconds passed, the bubble columns of each of he tubes were measured in millimeters. Results were recorded on a chart.
RESULTS As expected, during the temperature test, the least amount of bubbles were emitted in tubes that had been exposed to extreme heat. The tube placed in boiling water yielded zero millimeters of bubbles. The boiling water denatured the enzyme and altered its chemical structure rendering it incapable of undergoing metabolic reactions. For these same reasons, the vile placed in a hot bath, containing water at 85 degrees, produced only one
Biological functions are supported by a variety of controlled and optimized chemical reactions. Proteins called enzymes serve as biological mediators to these chemical reactions by lowering the activation energy required for the reaction. The rate at which enzymes react is influenced by environmental factors like pH level and temperature, substrate and enzyme concentration. Therefore to optimize the speed at which biological functions essential to life occur, it is essential to understand how environmental conditions affect the activity levels of enzymes.
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
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).
Oxygen production will occur in tube 5, 6, and 7 because each of those tubes 1 mL of distilled water, 3 mL of hydrogen peroxide, 1 mL of catalase solution, and 1 mL of a pH of 5, 7, or 9. These three different tubes do not contain HCl or NaOH that would change the pH of the solution in the tubes. HCl is a strong acid, whereas NaOH is a strong
Introduction: Enzymes are defined as being molecules that function as biological catalysts, increasing the rate of reaction without being consumed by the reaction. They allow molecules to use less energy to create the reaction. Each enzyme has a specific shape for its substrate and only that substrate can bind to the enzyme to create the reaction. If environmental factors change such as PH levels or temperature this could cause enzymes to change their shape and therefore their function. If the enzyme structure changes the molecules can’t bind to them causing the reactions to not be able to be made. The enzyme for this experiment was the catalase enzyme which is used for the degradation of hydrogen peroxide, it is a protective enzyme located in nearly all animal cells. After researching the topic finding the ways enzymes are effected by certain environmental factors drove to do the experiment. My hypothesis for this reaction was if the temperature goes up the enzyme reaction will go down because of denaturation. According to my hypothesis at 0 degrees Celsius the enzyme reaction should be the highest and at 23 degrees it should go down at 37 it should keep going down and at 55 degrees the enzyme reaction rate should be the lowest. This experiment is so important because the catalase enzyme breaks down H2O2 which is poisonous to our bodies and turns it into two chemicals that are not harmful to us,
Effect of Temperature on Rate of Reaction of Catalase Introduction This investigation was in an attempt to try to find out how varying the temperature can affect an enzyme. The enzyme used was catalase which breaks down Hydrogen Peroxide, this gives off water and oxygen as effervescence. This effervescence is what is used to measure the reaction rate of the catalase. The optimal heat for enzyme activity is proven to be 37oC as anything above this denatures the enzyme.
To study the effects of temperature, pH, enzyme concentration, and substrate concentration there were certain steps that were followed in order to conduct this experiment. Each factor had a separate procedure to follow to find how each had a different effect on the enzyme.
Enzymes primary job is to catalyse reactions in almost all biological functions in the body, speeding them up by lowering activation energy, taking the reaction rate from almost stagnant to a workable efficiency. Although, enzymes are only most efficient while in their optimum temperature and pH level, becoming inactive at high pH / low temperature and permanently denatured at low pH / high temperature rendering them useless due to the deformed active site. Pepsin for example, an enzyme used to break down protein in the stomach, has an optimum temperature or 37-42 degrees celsius and an optimum pH of 1.5-2.5.
Enzymes are biological catalysts that carry thousands of chemical reactions that occur in living cells. They could be found in every living thing. Enzymes increase the rate at which chemical reactions occur. A catalyst speeds up a chemical reaction by lowering the activation energy required. They are proteins made up of several amino acids. Each enzyme is different due to its structure, it all has different amino acid sequence. An enzymes ability to function depends on it’s environment. These factors include temperature, denaturation, pH, the size , the shape, and the amount of enzymes present. Enzymes performs best at ph7. That is the same pH as blood , the more enzymes stray away from pH7 the weaker it becomes , the active site gets damaged. This makes the enzyme not active, no longer functional. When it comes to temperature enzymes at a certain temperature have maximum activity. As temperature increases the enzyme activity also increases. When enzymes reach their maximum activity level and the temperature is still increasing it will start to decline (denaturation). The rate of reaction also depends on how much enzymes are present. We tested 5 hypothesis which were the amount of enzyme does not alter the rate of a reaction. pH does not influence the rate of an enzyme reaction. Temperature does not influence the rate of an enzyme activity. Boiling an enzyme before a reaction does not influence enzyme activity. The
A catalase is an enzyme that protects cells from oxidative damage. It does so by breaking down hydrogen peroxide, which the catalase generates during cell metabolism. Catalase deactivates millions of hydrogen peroxide molecules per second. First, the catalase breaks down hydrogen peroxide by removing and binding one oxygen atom and next releasing the rest of the hydrogen peroxide molecule as water. Then, the catalase breaks down a second hydrogen peroxide molecule by releasing oxygen gas and water. The optimum temperature- the temperature at which the enzyme is the most active at- is 40°C. Also, the optimum pH level for the catalase is pH 7.
All living things need catalase to live. Weather it regulating the amount of a substance in the body or decomposition it is always constant. In this experiment it looks at how cells react to their environment. The cells in this experiment would be the enzymes.
The purpose of this experiment was to determine how temperature affects the rate of enzyme activity on its substrate. Using methods like, add 2 mL of hydrogen peroxide to each test tube and observe the rate of reaction. The result of this experiment was when temperatures are higher they tend to speed up the effect of enzyme activity, while lower temperatures decrease the rate of an enzyme reaction. However, if the temperature is too high, an enzyme will denature, which causes the shape of the enzyme to change. If the enzyme's shape changes, it cannot bind to the substrate. It is important to be very precise while adding enough distilled water to cover the potato, or hydrogen peroxide. Because, it is a possibility that it will lead to an error.
The aim of my investigation is to see how pH affects the activity of potato tissue catalase, during the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to produce water and oxygen.
Heat effects the enzyme activity by speeding up the reaction and/ or completely denatures the enzyme. When the yeast and hydrogen peroxide mixture was put into the 80 degree C, the amount of O2 mL evolved constantly stayed at 0 ml for the complete 10 minutes contrary to the room temperature water in which the amount of O2 evolved increased by about an average of 7 mL for about 6 minutes and then increase by about 1-2 mL. An enzyme denatures with high temperature because heat changes the shape of the active site permanently which causes the enzyme to cease function. On the other hand, a colder temperature will slow the down the enzyme reaction. In 2.4 degree C solution, the amount of 02 evolved by about 1-3 mL every 30 seconds and by 6 min
Enzymes are known as proteins that speed up chemical reactions and depends on the environment where reaction is occurring. Due to their selective nature they only act on only one compound known as the substrate. As any change in configuration of an enzyme would stir the catalytic activities, factors including pH and temperature influence this and result in browning, a chemical change. Enzyme are known to act rapidly, therefore if it placed in a high temperature this would begin the breaking down and denature process which present less reaction. On the other hand if temperature is drop to freezing levels the enzyme would slow down or cease. A change in pH levels cause the enzyme to adapt to the various ranges however it will denature and change its shape .