Enzymes Flashcards
What does a co-factor do?
Binds to the enzyme to contribute to the catalytic mechanism in some way
What does an enzyme do?
Catalyses the rate at which a chemical reaction reaches equilibrium, without changing the position of equilibrium
What is Kcat?
The number of substrate molecules a single molecule of enzyme can bind and convert every second (when substrate is unlimited)
What three things can be measured in an enzyme assay to measure enzyme activity?
Rate of production of product
Rate of loss of substrate
Rate of production or loss of cofactor
Why is it important to meaasure the initial rate?
Rate can decrease due to less substrate being available as the reaction goes on
How does gel filtration work?
There is a column of beads with small cavities/pores. Smaller molecules can move through/get stuck in these pores and so take a long time to fall through the column. Larger molecules fall straight through. This layers the molecules by size
What is specific activity?
The number of enzyme units per mg of protein
What two things do we want to maximise in the purification of an enzyme?
Recovery of enzyme
Purity of enzyme
How do you calculate specific activity?
crude (or purified) rate in um per min / protein per ml in the sample
How do you find % recovery of an enzyme?
units in pure sample / units in crude sample x 100
How do you find the degree of purification of an enzyme?
specific activity of pure sample / specific activity of crude sample
What are the properties of an irreversible enzyme inhibitor? 3
Covalent or tight binding
Can be toxins that kill enzymes
Can be therapeutic (eg aspirin inactivating COX)
What are the properties of a reversible enzyme inhibitor? 4
Competitive
Can be overcome at high [S]
Vmax unaffected
Km increased
What are the properties of a non-competitive inhibitor? 5
Binds to a site other than the active site (allosteric)
Substrate and inhibitor can bind at the same time
Active site shape can be altered
Enzyme activity reduced
Vmax decreased, Km unaffected
What is the equation for a Lineweaver-Burk plot?
1/V = KM/Vmax x 1/[S] + 1/Vmax y = m x X + c
What do the lines on a linear plot look like in competitive enzyme inhibition?
The line with the inhibitor has a higher Km than the line without. Both lines have the same intercept (Vmax)
What do the lines on a linear plot look like in non-competitive enzyme inhibition?
Both lines have the same Km (starting point). The inhibited line has a lower Vmax (higher intercept).
What happens during the transition state of a reaction? 3 What do catalysts do to this state? 1
Higher free energy than substrate or product
Unstable
Slows down the reaction
A catalyst can lower the transition state energy and stabilise it