The Importance of Enzymes in Our Body Essay examples

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

4) It is likely that the rate of reaction would increase as substrate is added. It will probably follow classical michaelis-menten kinetics. See the attached picture for an example of this scheme for the rates (the picture of the hyperbola is the rate vs. the substrate concentration).

If temperature of the water(enzyme environment) is increased to 35°C, then the enzyme activity will

The temperature can have a major impact on an enzyme. According to Campbell Biology author Reece etc. 2011 “The enzyme reaction will increase as the temperature increase with the increasing temperature….substrates collide with active sites more frequently when the molecules move rapidly.”(Reece etc 2011) Every enzyme hits its optimal temperature the reaction will be at its highest point.(Reece etc. 2011) When the

• Fourthly, we kept the temperature at a constant 25°C using a water bath. At low temperatures, an increase in temperature causes an exponential increase in enzyme activity. This is because an increase in temperature provides more kinetic energy for the collisions of enzymes and substrates, so

However, the rate of reaction only increases for a certain period of time until there is lesser substrate molecules than the enzyme molecules. The increase of enzyme concentration does not have effect if there are lesser substrate molecules than enzyme molecules initially.

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).

The optimal temperature permits the utmost number of molecular collisions and the fastest alteration of the reactants to product molecules. Most human enzymes have an optimal temperature of about 35-40°C (close to body temperature 37°C).

Hypothesis: If the concentration of the substrate is increased, then the rate of enzyme activity will decrease. This is because as the concentration of the substrate increases, there is an increasing amount of occupied active sites at any given moment. This will cause a decrease in the rate of enzyme activity as substrate-active site collisions are increasingly slowed down thus bringing down the rate of enzyme activity.

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 proteins that have catalytic functions” [1], “that speed up or slow down reactions”[2], “indispensable to maintenance and activity of life”[1]. They are each very specific, and will only work when a particular substrate fits in their active site. An active site is “a region on the surface of an enzyme where the substrate binds, and where the reaction occurs”[2].

reaction rate increases. If the temperature of an enzyme gets to high the reaction rate will slow

As the temperature increases, so will the rate of enzyme reaction. However, as the temperature exceeds the optimum the rate of reaction will decrease.

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.

The hypothesis is as the substrate concentration has an increase so will the reaction of velocity if the amount of enzyme is kept constant.