Enzyme_Concentration_and_Enzyme_Activity

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Biology – Mr Smith                 27th November 2007

Enzyme Concentration and Enzyme Activity

Aim:

The pancreatic duct in individuals who have cystic fibrosis frequently becomes blocked, reducing or preventing the release of pancreatic enzymes into the small intestine. The aim of this activity is to investigate the effect of a reduction in enzyme concentration on the rate of reaction, in this case the breakdown of sucrose by sucrase enzymes.

Hypothesis:

I predict that an increase of concentration levels of substrate will catalyse the rate of reaction up to a point whereby any further increase in concentration produces no significant change in the rate of reaction as result of the enzyme reaching their active peak.

Null Hypothesis:

There will be no relationship found between the concentration levels of enzyme and substrate and the rate of reaction.

Rationale:

Enzymes play key roles in an experiment where they are used to catalyse a reaction. Enzymes can speed up the breaking down of molecules, like protein, into smaller ones. Others can speed up the building of large molecules out of small ones. They do this by lowering the energy needed for the chemical reaction to occur, the energy needed for the chemical to occur is also known as the activation energy. Without the enzyme, the activation energy needed for the reaction to proceed is high and vice versa.

Enzymes are made up of proteins where large compounds made of 20 different amino acids are arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acids in the R-Group. This process can then form a Polypetide chain where it can contain thousands of amino acids. One or more of these Polypetide

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chains can form a protein. The tertiary structure of an enzyme determinds its unique shape and so this then forms an active site, like the one in Fig. 1[a].

This part of an enzyme contains the catalytic and binding properties to enable the substrate to bind to the active site shown in Figure 1[b]

below.

Once the enzyme-substrate complex has been formed the enzyme catalyses the chemical reaction to make the product. The product molecules then leave the active site. From Figure 1[b], you can see that during the reaction ...

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