Enzyme Lab

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1. Introduction: Enzymes are large protein molecules that are made up of amino acids monomers linked together by peptide bonds. Enzymes are essential in controlling and regulating the metabolism, they are biological catalysts. These biological catalysts are important in biochemical reactions by speeding these reactions that are basically slow (or that cannot happen in the absence of these catalysts), these catalysts speed up a reaction by lowering its activation energy. Enzymes are not consumed or decomposed during a reaction. Since most enzymes are proteins so they have a three dimensional shape. Enzymes are characterized by their specificity, each enzyme has an active site with a particular shape which by its turn is related to the shape…show more content…
This verify that on the extreme the enzyme is denatured. The tube that contained the solution with a pH=4, the activity of the enzyme was very weak because the intensity of the color change was zero at the beginning then it became 1; this means that this pH is not suitable for the activity of the enzyme. The tube that contained the solution with a pH=6, the activity of the enzyme is also very weak because the color change intensity was at the beginning 1 then it became 2. This shows that the enzyme did not catalyze the potato totally so this pH is not suitable for the enzyme to function normally. Since in the solutions with an acidic pH equal to 2, 4 and 6 the activity of the enzyme was very weak and almost zero; this means that this enzyme needs a basic pH to function. The tube that contained the solutions with a pH equal to 10 and 12 the activity of the enzyme was maximal. In the solution of pH=10, the color intensity was 2 then it became 3; in the solution of pH=12, the color intensity was 2 then it became…show more content…
5. Pre-lab and Post-lab questions: Pre-lab questions: 1. Since enzymes are mostly proteins, the monomers that compose enzymes are the amino acids. 2. Enzymes are biological catalysts that speed up a reaction. 3. The factors that affect the enzyme activity are: temperature, pH, ion concentration, allosteric interactions and inhibitors. 4. An extreme pH will denature the enzyme and disabling its normal activity because the enzyme’s conformation will change. Post-lab questions: 1. The substrate is the catechol, the enzyme is the catechol oxidase present in the potato extract, and the product involved is benzoquinone. 2. The control was lacking the substrate which is the catechol. 3. The tubes were put in there various temperature to see the difference in color before and after adding catechol at the same temperature. 4. The optimum temperature for catecholase activity is

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