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Enzyme Lab

Good Essays

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze (speed up) biological reactions in an organism by lowering the activation energy of a reaction. They do this by either straining the bonds in a molecule so that is easier to break up or by placing separate molecules/elements close to each other so that bonds are formed. Enzyme activity is influenced by an array of different factors such as enzyme concentration, substrate concentration, temperature, pH and inhibitor concentration. All of these affect the rate of reactions of enzymes and some such as temperature, inhibitors and pH can under circumstances cause enzymes to become permanently affected.

Catalase is an enzyme found in almost all organisms on earth exposed to Oxygen. It breaks down H2O2, a dangerous …show more content…

Due to the range of concentrations the anticipated trend was not seen, because the enzyme did not become the limiting variable. Furthermore, from 1% to 3% the intervals were .5% instead of .25% a smaller interval would make the data more clear. This had a large impact on the yielded results as the anticipated trend was not observable. The range of the concentration should be from 0.00% to 5% with .25% intervals to make the data more clear and to see if the hypothesized trend would be observable. If the trend would still not be observable the concentration could be elevated even …show more content…

Extension:
Comparing the trends shown in enzyme activity increase in catalase activity when no inhibitors are added to when a set amount of competitive inhibitors are added and a set amount of non-competitive inhibitors are added could extend this lab.
Another possible extension is comparing the efficiency of catalase to other peroxidases by conducting the same experiment and seeing which enzyme will have the highest rate of reaction overall.

Furthermore, one could compare the amount of catalase in an organism/part of an organism by finding the rate of reaction of different origins of catalase under the exact same conditions with an excess of hydrogen peroxide

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