Chemical reactions in living things Flashcards
How do living things get energy to complete all life processes?
We get energy from a series of chemical reactions within cells, photosynthesis turns light energy into chemical energy with glucose as the end product. This glucose is broken down by respiration to provide the plant with food.
How are chemical reactions sped up?
Enzymes are chemicals that speed up rates of reaction. They are proteins made up of long chains amino acids.
How is an enzyme built up?
Enzymes have an active site that a substrate (the thing an enzyme works on) will neatly fit into. The substrate takes part in the chemical reaction and the products (the chemicals produced) are released.
How can the effectiveness of enzymes be increased or decreased?
Enzymes have a specific pH and temperature that they work best in. The body temp of mammals and birds is the optimum temperature. Colder than this they aren’t as efficient and much hotter and the enzyme will be destroyed.
What can happen to the active site as its environmental factors change?
While an increased temperature increases the rate of reaction, if it gets too hot the active site can change shape and stop working, whether caused by increased temp or pH level, when the change becomes permanent the active site has been denatured.
