Enzymes Flashcards
Living beings have a lot of reactions going on inside of them that need speed up. We can use temperature to speed them up, but it isn’t recommended. Why is temperature not the correct solution?
Increase of temperature will eventually hit a limit (if it gets too hot, the cells inside the organism will grow damaged)
Increase of temperature will also speed up several unwanted reactions. So it comes with a downside
Increasing the temperature comes with several downfalls and we can’t use that to speed up our reactions. What do we use?
Enzymes– our biological catalysts
What are catalysts and how does this relate to Enzymes?
A catalyst is a substance that increase the rate of reaction without being used up or changes. Enzymes are our body’s natural catalysts for the several reactions going on inside of us
Why do living beings produce catalysts?
Because we can’t use temperature to speed up reactions (because of all its downsides), our bodies create natural catalysts
Why would enzymes be more useful at speeding up reactions than temperature would be?
Enzymes carefully control reactions to get the right about of product produced at the end and they only speed up wanted and useful reactions
Enzymes are catalysts, they do not change and cannot be used up
What are enzymes in general terms and what are they made up of?
Enzymes are just large proteins, and like all proteins, they are made up of amino acid chains
Why do enzymes have special shapes, what are they called and how did they get them?
Enzymes have special shapes because they need them to be able to catalyse reactions. To form these special shapes, the amino acid chains that make up the enzymes are folded up into the shapes needed.
These special shapes that the enzymes have are called “the active site”
Why is an enzyme’s active site so important?
Without the active site, enzymes cannot catalyse any reactions
What is the scientific term for the substance that the Enzymes acts on?
The substances that the enzymes act on are called “substrates”
Enzymes will usually only catalyse one reaction. Why?
They can only catalyse reactions of one type. This is because for the enzyme to be able to a catalyse a reaction, the substrates must fit into the enzyme’s active site. Since the enzyme is built only to fit in particular substrates, if a substrate for another reaction tries to fit, it’ll find that it can’t, and if it can’t fit in the active site, the reaction can’t be catalysed at all
Explain what the three panels of the lock and key diagram of enzyme action depict
It shows an enzyme and a substrate near it in the first panel
In the second panel, it shows the substrate fitting perfectly into the enzyme like a lock in a key
In the third panel it shows the enzyme after the reaction (unchanged) and the substrate split into two (products)
Is the lock and key diagram entirely accurate?
It’s simple and gets the message across, but it’s not entirely accurate
If the lock and key method isn’t accurate, then what actually happens in reality? What is the name of this reality put into a diagram?
In reality, the Enzyme and the substrate don’t exactly perfectly fit together like a lock and key. The enzyme’s active shape will change its shape slightly to tighten its hold on the substrate. This reality is depicted in a diagram called the “induced fit model of enzyme action”
Explain what is meant by an enzymes “optimum temperature”. What is this temperature in human bodies?
An optimum temperature is the temperate at which an enzyme will be able to function at its best. The enzyme will be most active at this temperature. In humans, this temperature is 37 degrees Celsius
What does it mean if an enzyme is denatured by temperature?
The denaturing of an enzyme is when the active site of an enzyme is permanently changed and therefore the enzyme cant work to catalyse any reactions at all. If an enzyme is denatured by temperature, than the temperature was too hot for the enzyme to function in. The heat damaged the bonds holding the enzyme together and so, the enzyme’s active site is consequently also damaged.
