The Effect Of Protease On Breaking Down Egg Whites

Research Question

How does the change in temperature affect the effectiveness of protease on breaking down egg whites?

Introduction

Enzymes are a substance known as biological catalysts, this basically means they can, without being used up, speed up chemical reactions. Enzymes are made up proteins that create elaborate shapes that smaller molecules, such as protein particles, can then fit in. These areas that allow the molecules to fit in are called active sites. Some different enzymes such as protease, amylase and lipase, all work well in different conditions, and in different parts of the digestive system. They can be deactivated, denatured by extreme temperatures or changes in pH and in this case we are testing the affect of temperature

In the time it took for the enzyme to break up 0.23 grams of egg white at the temperature of 40 degrees, it broke down nearly three times as much in a temperature of 65 degrees. We can see from the graph that the hotter the water bath was the more egg white protein were broken down (because some of the test pieces gained mass, the graph shows the largest LOSS in mass in negatives to distinguish the difference between gaining and losing mass, so if the graph shows negative this indicates the largest loss of mass). Looking back at my hypothesis we can see that it was not correct although some of the predictions were more accurate than others. I predicted that the enzyme would work best in the two middle temperatures as they were the closest to core body temperature. looking at my results from the experiment we can clearly see that this was not true, but instead the two lower temperatures of 4 and 21 degrees Celsius showed a gain in mass while both higher temperatures of 40 and 65 degrees Celsius clearly indicate the breaking down of the particles as their is a clear decline of mass. I also mentioned that the enzymes would not perform at their best due to lack of acidic conditions and I consider this prediction correct as none of the tested pieces was completely broken down, while if the egg white was being digested in the human body this process would