Enzyme Lab Report

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Introduction Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts for biological and chemical reactions; enzymes can be produced by a living organism or they can be man-made. Enzymes “speed up reactions by providing an alternative reaction pathway of lower activation energy”, but the enzymes are not consumed in the process (“Enzymes”). Enzymes form a complex with the substrate. It is possible that the enzyme may change when it is bound to the substrate, but it will go back to its original form after a while. The substrate molecules then bind to the enzyme’s active site. The shape of the enzyme’s active site is very important because it determines which substrate will fit with it. Every enzyme is most effective at a certain pH. When the pH is unfavorable,…show more content…
An increase in substrate concentration will increase the time it takes for the enzymatic reaction to complete. However, when the concentration reaches a certain value, the reaction will not get any faster because there is a limit to how many active sites there are and how fast each enzyme works. As stated earlier, each enzyme has optimal conditions in which it will work the fastest and the most efficiently; this includes an optimal temperature. When the temperature gets too cold, the enzyme will stop reacting. When the temperature gets too hot, the enzyme will become denatured by losing its tertiary structure when the noncovalent bonds break. Therefore, the question to be asked is how does substrate concentration and pH affect enzyme function? There will be an optimal condition outside which function is lower. The optimal conditions are when pH equals 5 and the substrate…show more content…
There will be an optimal condition outside which function is lower. The optimal conditions are when pH equals 5 and the substrate concentration equals 3%. Substrate concentration can speed up the enzymatic reaction as the concentration increases. As the concentration increases, there is more substrate to bind to the active sites. However, it will not keep increasing because it will eventually reach a limit. There are only so many active sites. You may saturate the active sites with substrates, but only one substrate can bind to one active site at a time. Each enzyme has an optimal pH at which the enzymatic reactions can occur the quickest. If you go outside the optimal range, the enzyme activity will be lost and the reaction will slow down greatly. My data refutes my predictions. In regards to substrate concentration, instead of the optimal value being 3%, the optimal value shown in this experiment was 6%. This is not what I expected. The 3% concentration showed the second lowest enzyme activity, with the concentration of 12% being the absolute lowest value. This makes sense because, with a 12% concentration, the active sites are saturated with substrates. In regards to pH, the value with the highest enzyme activity was 9, instead of the predicted value of 5. I did not expect this either. The pH value of 5 did have a high value of enzyme activity, but the most activity occurred when the pH equaled 9. The lowest

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