Introduction Chemical reactions are seen in many instances, including those in which one substance is being converted to another. Natural chemical reactions will occur without intervention, however they occur slowly. Enzymes become important in these situations. Enzymes are proteins that act in cells to ensure reactions occur at appropriate speeds. In other words, they act as catalysts. Catalysts are chemicals that can be added to these reactions to increase the rate of the reaction without being changed or consumed. Enzymes act upon specific molecules called substrates. The relationship between enzymes and substrates can be thought of as a lock and key relationship. Every substrate has a specific enzyme that can act upon it and change it. …show more content…
Based on the observation that the tubes containing PTA and citric acid were the only tubes that showed no color change, it was assumed that the ion of copper that the two the chelating agents bonded was necessary for the reaction. Otherwise, if it was not necessary, color change, from clear to brown, would have occurred signaling that the enzyme, catecholase, did catalyze the conversion of catechol to benzoquinone. The purpose of this experiment was to determine which ion(s) bonded by the three chelating agents was the necessary cofactor(s) to the enzyme catecholase. Since the presence of benzoquinone causes the appearance of a brown color, we used this factor to determine whether or not the reaction occurred-by which catecholase was to catalyze. If the necessary cofactor was bonded to by one of the chelating agents, the reaction would not have occurred, thus seen in tubes 2 and 3, containing PTU and citric acid which lacked the appearance of the brown color. In other words, the enzyme was not able to catalyze appropriately without the presence of the specific cofactor. Meaning copper, which was bonded to by both, was needed in order for the catechol to be conversed. In contrast, if an ion was bonded to by one of the chelating agents and the reaction still occurred, this situation would signal that it was a necessary cofactor to the enzyme. Therefore, the brown color would have appeared, as seen in tube 1, containing EDTA. In other words, calcium and magnesium were not viable factors in the reaction and the enzyme was able to catalyze appropriately despite whether or not they were