Enzymes Flashcards
What are enzymes?
An enzyme is a biological catalyst. They are made up of chains of amino acids
What is a catalyst?
chemical reactions that speed up without being change or used up
What are the lock and key models?
The active site and substrate have to fit perfectly to react
What is the induced key model?
The active site adjusts to the substrate
How do you speed up the reactions?
Increase the temperature
What does speeding up the reactions do to the cell?
It can damage the cell, speed up non-useful reactions, and requires lots of energy
Why are enzymes called biological catalysts
They speed up the process of breakdown of nutrients in out body
Why do enzymes require an optimum pH or temperature
Because they are proteins
What happens when the temperature becomes too hot
the bonds will break, changing the shape of active site so substrate doesn’t fit anymore making the enzyme denatured
What happens if the pH is too high or too low
It will affect the hold of amino acids chains that make up the protein, so they will change the shape of the active site making the enzyme denatured
