The Importance Of A Chemical Reaction With Enzymes

The hypothesis is that catalase activity will increase exponentially with higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide until all catalase active sites are filled, in which case the

Enzymes are biological catalysts that speed up chemical reactions, without being used up or changed. Catalase is a globular protein molecule that is found in all living cells. A globular protein is a protein with its molecules curled up into a 'ball' shape. All enzymes have an active site. This is where another molecule(s) can bind with the enzyme. This molecule is known as the substrate. When the substrate binds with the enzyme, a product is produced. Enzymes are specific to their substrate, because the shape of their active site will only fit the shape of their substrate. It is said that the substrate is complimentary to their substrate.

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

Three factors that can affect the rate of reaction are temperature, pH and the salinity.

Background and Introduction: Enzymes are proteins that process substrates, which is the chemical molecule that enzymes work on to make products. Enzyme purpose is to increase the rate of activity and speed up chemical reaction in a form of biological catalysts. The enzymes specialize in lowering the activation energy to start the process. Enzymes are very specific in their process, each substrate is designed to fit with a specific substrate and the enzyme and substrate link at the active site. The binding of a substrate to the active site of an enzyme is a very specific interaction. Active sites are clefts or grooves on the surface of an enzyme, usually composed of amino acids from different parts of the polypeptide chain that are brought together in the tertiary structure of the folded protein. Substrates initially bind to the active site by noncovalent interactions, including hydrogen bonds, ionic bonds, and hydrophobic interactions. Once a substrate is bound to the active site of an enzyme, multiple mechanisms can accelerate its conversion to the product of the reaction. But sometimes, these enzymes fail or succeed to increase the rate of action because of various factors that limit the action. These factors can be known as temperature, acidity levels (pH), enzyme and/or substrate concentration, etc. In this experiment, it will be tested how much of an effect

These results shown from this experiment led us to conclude that enzymes work best at certain pH rates. For this particular enzyme, pH 7 worked best. When compared to high levels of pH, the lower levels worked better. The wrong level of pH can denature enzymes; therefore finding the right level is essential. The independent variable was the amount of pH, and the dependent being the rate of oxygen. The results are reliable as they are reinforced by the fact that enzymes typically work best at neutral pH

As stated in the introduction, three conditions that may affect enzyme activity are salinity, temperature, and pH. In experiment two, we explored how temperature can affect enzymatic activity. Since most enzymes function best at their optimum temperature or room temperature, it was expected that the best reaction is in this environment. The higher the temperature that faster the reaction unless the enzyme is denatured because it is too hot. Similarly, pH and salinity can affect enzyme activity.

The independent variable in this investigation is pH. Each individual enzyme has it’s own pH characteristic. This is because the hydrogen and ionic bonds between –NH2 and –COOH groups of the polypeptides that make up the enzyme, fix the exact arrangement of the active site of an enzyme. It is crucial to be aware of how even small changes in the

Substrate concentration also affects the rate of reaction as the greater the substrate concentration the faster the rate of reaction and all the active sites are filled. At this point the rate of reaction can only be increased if you add more enzymes in to make more active sites available.

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).

Purpose To investigate how changes in the acidic pH level of an HCl solution will affect the rate at which the catalase enzyme will break down hydrogen peroxide into its products, oxygen and water. Hypothesis If the pH of the solution is related to the reaction rate of catalase, then changing the acidity of the environment will affect the decomposition rate of hydrogen peroxide because catalase has an optimal pH level at which it functions best. Since catalase is found throughout the human body (and highly concentrated in the liver), it is expected that the optimal pH of catalase will be similar to the pH of a human liver, which is maintained around 7 (neutral) (Science Buddies, 2012).

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 present in all living things. These specialized proteins speed up chemical reactions fast enough to sustain life . Since enzymes are a huge topic to even begin to cover, we tested a

This experiment is designed to analyze how the enzyme catalase activity is affected by the pH levels. The experiment has also been designed to outline all of the directions and the ways by which the observation can be made clearly and accurately. Yeast, will be used as the enzyme and hydrogen peroxide will be used as a substrate. This experiment will be used to determine the effects of the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide versus the rate of reaction of the enzyme catalase.

Almost all enzymes need specific conditions for them to function. The conditions include temperature, pH level, and concentration of salt. Enzymes have optimal conditions. If they are changed, the enzyme may denature and deactivate. If that happens, the enzyme would not be able to catalyze the reaction, and the reaction rate would decrease (Worthington 2010).