Energetics and Catabolism

Question 1

What is metabolism?

Answer 1

Collection of controlled biochemical reactions that take place within a microbe

Question 2

What are the two classes of metabolism?

Answer 2

Catabolism

Anabolism

Question 3

What is catabolism?

Answer 3

Processes that degrade compounds to release energy / make ATP

= exergonic reactions

Question 4

What is anabolism?

Answer 4

Biosynthetic process

Processes that assemble large molecules from the smaller products of catabolism using ATP

= endergonic reaction

Question 5

How are catabolism and anabolism connected in a cycle?

Answer 5

Catabolism breaks things down and releases energy.

That energy is used to build those things up into different things during anabolism.

Once something is built and the energy is stored again, it can be used by catabolism to break it down again when needed.

Question 6

Why are enzymes needed in a living system?

Answer 6

All chemical reactions needed for the function of a biological cell, whether they are spontaneous or not, need enzymes in order to occur at rates sufficient for life

Question 7

What are enzymes?

Answer 7

highly selective protein catalysts of metabolic/biochemical reactions

Question 8

How does an enzyme speed up metabolic reactions?

Answer 8

• An enzyme brings reactants together in precise orientations in its active site
• An enzyme lowers the activation energy by stabilizing the transition state of the reaction