The Macromolecules Of The Body

This experiment looked at how substrate concentration can affect enzyme activity. In this case the substrate was hydrogen peroxide and the enzyme was catalase. Pieces of meat providing the catalase were added to increasing concentrations of hydrogen peroxide in order to measure the effect of hydrogen peroxide concentrations on the enzyme’s activity. The variable measured was oxygen produced, as water would be too difficult to measure with basic equipment.

Enzymes are biological catalysts, which accelerate the speed of chemical reactions in the body without being used up or changed in the process. Animals and plants contain enzymes which help break down fats, carbohydrates and proteins into smaller molecules the cells can use to get energy and carry out the processes that allow the plant or animal to survive. Without enzymes, most physiological processes would not take place. Hundreds of different types of enzymes are present in plant and animal cells and each is very specific in its function.

Using an O2 sensor to measure how much additional oxygen is added into a sealed Nalgene bottle, we could determine the enzymes effectiveness. Three variations of temperature were tested: cold, hot and room temperature. This was done by taking test tubes with the three different samples and placing them in a Nalgene Bottle. It was determined that the enzyme is most effective when at room temperature although still functions when it is chilled. The heated sample was drastically less effective.

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).

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.

Objective: Measure the rate of decomposition of hydrogen peroxide with and without the addition of an enzyme catalase at different time intervals.

The purpose of this experiment is to see how the enzyme peroxidase performs under different conditions. An enzyme is a protein molecule that is a biological catalyst. A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, while also lowering the activation energy of a reaction. The activation energy of a reaction is the initial amount of energy that is necessary to bring reactants together with the proper amount of energy and placement so that products can be formed. Enzymes have a unique 3-D shape, which enables it to stabilize a temporary association between substrates (the reactant molecules that binds to the active site of an enzyme and undergoes chemical modification).

Background Research Enzymes are tertiary and quaternary structures of proteins and biological catalysts that accelerate the rates of chemical reactions. Enzymes are significant in that they are not permanently changed in the process and may be reused. Enzymes speed up chemical reactions by lowering the activation energy needed to start a chemical reaction. The process of speeding up a chemical reaction via the use of enzymes begins when a substrate, the substance (reactant) that an enzyme acts upon, binds to the active site of an enzyme. The active site is the region on an enzyme where substrate binds to and undergoes an accelerated chemical reaction; it is where catalysis occurs.

Background Information An enzyme is a “macromolecule serving as a catalyst, a chemical agent that increases the rate of a reaction,” (Campbell Biology, 68). There are many different enzymes that have varying effects on reactions. Catalase, “an enzyme that brings about (catalyzes) the reaction by which hydrogen peroxide is decomposed to water and oxygen,” is the primary enzyme that effects hydrogen (Encyclopedia Britannica). In this experiment, the goal is to test how three different locations where these enzymes can be found catalyze the reactions in hydrogen peroxide. When hydrogen peroxide is exposed to certain enzymes it starts to become water due to the loss of oxygen molecules.

The enzyme that will be used in this experiment is catalase which can be found in animal or plant cells. The substrate that will be catalyzed by catalase is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), toxic product in most living organisms. The catalase enzyme will catalyze the hydrolysis reaction of hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water

Enzymes serve many vital functions as they aid with important processes, which allows for reactions to occur. Enzymes are characterized as macromolecules that serve as catalysts, which are chemical agents that can increase the rate of a reaction, whilst not being consumed by the reaction (Urry et al., 2017). Without enzymes, chemical reactions would not be catalyzed, thus resulting in inactive states. In addition to serving as catalysts to start chemical reactions, enzymes are also involved with digestion. This is essential since enzymes help these metabolic reactions to occur, which provides organisms with the necessary nutrients and energy in order to survive.

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.

Enzymes offer support to the human body. They speed up cells’ chemical reactions within the body by lowering the activation barrier. The goal of this experiment was to understand how and why enzymes work in such specific ways. It was also to understand the different conditions under which the enzymes work.

In this specific experiment, the pH of the environment in which the reaction took place was altered in order to observe how the rate of the enzyme catalase’s activity would be affected. Like most other enzymes, catalase performs optimally at a pH of 7. For the purposes of this experiment, the varying pH levels were assigned as the independent variable and the rate of enzymatic activity was the dependent variable. From a molecular standpoint, pH levels can change the shape of an enzyme, causing the active site’s shape to change and not allowing the substrate to fit in correctly. The pH levels may also change properties of the substrate, in which case it may not bind properly and result in an ineffective catalyzation (Nishiura). In this way, varying the pHs allows for the rate of enzymatic activity to be observed since there will be an optimal pH at which the enzyme and substrate’s shape and integral properties are retained. Any deviation from this pH will

Catalase is a common enzyme found in nearly all living organisms that are exposed to oxygen, where it functions to catalyze the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen. Hydrogen peroxide is a strong oxidizer and a transparent liquid, slightly stronger than water. Since it can be used as an oxidizer, many people use it as bleach or cleaning agent. It is commonly produced in human bodies and can become extremely toxic if it accumulates. Since organisms naturally produce hydrogen peroxide as a by-product of eating, the liver produces the catalase enzyme to break down the toxic hydrogen peroxide into water and hydrogen. Catalase has one of