Enzyme Characteristics Essay

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Enzyme characteristics What is an enzyme? Enzymes are biological catalysts, mainly in the form of proteins, generated by your body to speed up chemical reactions that take place in the body. They contain an active site on which the substrate attaches itself, and will later be either joined to another or broken down. Without enzymes reactions would still occur, however it would be much too slow to sustain life.7 1. An enzyme stays the same even after a reaction: An enzyme keeps working even after a chemical reaction because their active site and structure is the same before and after a reaction at optimum temperatures even though over the state can alter during the reaction. This happens because enzymes are proteins, and their shape is what they use in a chemical reaction. This characteristic greatly increases enzymes efficiency, because they can be reused multiple times without changing the speed of the reaction. You could compare them to a spanner in the way that a spanner will still fit a screw a bolt even after many others. 2. Enzymes are highly specific: An enzyme will only bind with a very specific molecule or chemical group and will normally have no effect on molecules that are not their substrate. Enzymes work because of their specifically shaped active site which is the part of the enzyme that binds to the substrate efficiently, causing the enzyme to change shape and catalyse the reaction. Substrates that are the wrong shape, size or charge will not fit into the active site or will be repelled. 3. Enzymes can work with the same chemical reaction in the opposite way: Enzymes are capable of working in reverse, this act’s as a cut off point for the amount of product being produced. If there are excess reactants the reaction will keep going and be reversed, so that there is no overload or build-up of product. 4. Temperature and ph. effects

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