Proteins have the mission of acting as catalysts in the human body, enzymes that increase the rate of chemical reactions in cells. When no enzyme is present, most chemical reactions are so slow that they cannot even progress under the conditions of temperature and pressure that are suitable for life. Enzymes can boost and improve the rates of such reactions by over a million times, therefore, reactions that would take years in the absence of catalysts can happen in even less than seconds if catalyzed by the appropriate enzyme (Cooper).
Enzymes are characterized by two fundamental properties. First of all, they raise the rate of chemical reactions without getting consumed or permanently altered by the reaction. Secondly, they boost these reaction
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After the binding of a substrate to an active site, the active site is occupied and unavailable to other substrate molecules until products have been composed and released from the active site (Allott and Mindorff). As the concentration of the substrate rises, more and more of the active sites consequently get occupied. As a result of all of this, a greater proportion of substrate-active site collisions are blocked. For this reason, the rate at which enzymes catalyze reactions gets smaller as substrate concentration increases.
Aim of this investigation is to find out how much of an effect there is on enzyme activity and reaction time as pH values change.
In this practical, the enzyme that will be used for experimentation purposes is catalase. This molecule is usually found in animal and potato cells, and a substantial amount can be found in any potato extract. The substrate that will be catalyzed is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2,), a common but toxic end product of our metabolism, and highly dangerous if accumulated in the body and not decomposed. It can damage cells if it is not removed. Catalase is an enzyme that speeds up the breakdown of H2O2 into water (H2O) and oxygen (O2) (Chelikani et al.). This reaction can be shown with the following balanced equation:
2H_2 O_2 □(→┴Catalase ) 2H_2