Research: Trypsin. Enzymes are proteins that speed up the rate of reaction in living things without being changed themselves.

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Research: Trypsin.

Enzymes are proteins that speed up the rate of reaction in living things without being changed themselves. They are composed of polymers of amino acids and are biological catalysts.

They speed up reactions by a process called the induced fit hypothesis. Originally it was believed that the 'lock and key' hypothesis was how the enzymes work, but this is now believed to be incorrect because the enzymes can change shape so that the substrate (the thing that is broken up) can fit into the active site of the enzyme, which is why it is called the induced fit hypothesis. The lock and key hypothesis suggests that the enzymes are the correct shapes without having to change for the substrate to fit in, which they often are not. The substrate enters the enzyme and is digested in the active site of the enzyme.

Extracts from the Columbia Encyclopaedia.

Enzyme that acts to degrade protein; it is often referred to as a proteolytic enzyme, or proteinase. Trypsin is one of the three principal digestive proteases, the other two being pepsin and chymotrypsin. In the digestive process, Trypsin acts with the other proteases to break