Enzymes Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Enzymes - Lab Report Example As stated by Onteh et al (2005), most biochemical reactions would be very slow without enzymes since enzymes increase the rate of biochemical reactions by thousands times. It is therefore important to study the environmental factors: pH and temperature and how they would affect specific enzymes. There are three characteristics of enzymes that make them function as catalysts. First enzymes increase the rate of biochemical reaction, second, they are specific to a substrate and thirdly they can be regulated to increase or reduce rate of biochemical reaction. Studies have confirmed that enzymatic activities are affected by certain factors such as enzyme concentration, pH, and temperature as well as substrate concentration. According to (), all these factors except substrate concentration have the effect of modifying the specificity nature of the enzyme there by making it incompatible with the substrate. Moreover enzymes act as catalysts because they exhibit three dimensional protein structures. As stated by Onteh et al (2005), this structure is particularly sensitive to changes in salts, pH and temperature thus a slight changes in temperatures of reaction can significantly change the rte of reaction while extreme temperatures can irreversibly alter the both the three dimensiona l structure of the enzyme thus making it impossible to catalyze a reaction. The enzymatic activity is based on the fact that enzymes are made up of certain active sites that are specific to the substrate’s active sites. As stated by Onteh et al (2005), it is on this active sites that enzymes bind to a given substrate in a geometrical fashion after which substrate undergo its inherent reaction at a much faster rate. This mode of enzymatic action is referred to as lock and key. It is important to note that enzyme does not actually react with a substrate, but brings and aligns the substrate in order for it to react with other substances. Enzymes therefore have