Carolyn Leon Block 1 11/28/17 Enzymes Background Information 1) Enzymes act as a biological catalyst (Miller, Levine, 2002). Enzymes, like catalysts, speed up the time it takes for a chemical reaction to happen. Enzymes provide an active site for substrates; the active site lowers the amount of energy necessary to break previously existing bonds and form new bonds. Enzymes can be affected by pH, temperature, concentration, and salinity. Enzymes can either stress break individual chemical bonds or bring two substrates together in the correct order (Mason, Losos, Singer, 2011). Enzymes work on a specific chemical reaction at a time. Enzymes can also determine the course of metabolism, which are all the chemical reactions, in a cell which is …show more content…
Lillestolen, 2017). After the formation of the polypeptide, the structure folds, which becomes a folded protein structure; Protein folding is the folding of polypeptide chains. Because enzymes are specific to an individual chemical reaction at one time, they have an area called an active site that reduce the amount of energy needed for the reaction and allows a place where reactants can react (Miller, Levine, 2002). Substrates are the reactants in enzyme-catalyzed reactions and the products are the final product of enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Enzymes aren’t always proteins; In a report from the University of Colorado and Thomas J. Cech in 1981, some reactions with RNA molecules had seemed to be catalyzed by RNA itself in cells (Mason, Losos, Singer, 2011). The ribozyme catalysts, like enzymes, speed up chemical reactions. There are at least two kinds of ribozymes, some that have folded structures which the reactions are catalyzed on themselves, and ribozymes that don’t change and act on other molecules. 3) Hydrogen peroxide is released into the body as a product from enzymes (Saraste,2000). Although many organs are exposed to H2O2, having too much H2O2 can lead to further damage of the organs. Hydrogen peroxide is made through the human thyroid, and its purpose is to sterilize wounds