The application of enzymes in industry and medicine.

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The application of enzymes in industry and medicine.

Enzymes are catalysts, which are an essential part of our everyday lives. Made mostly from proteins, (although there are some made from lipids or nucleic acids), enzymes become involved in chemical and biological reactions where they simply aid and accelerate the reaction occurring. Enzymes are globular proteins, folded into compact shapes that give them their unique active sites. This tertiary structure of the enzyme determines its function and allows it to be extremely specific, as each will only catalyse one reaction. Therefore, there are thousands and thousands of different enzymes, each with their own specialised function.

Enzymes are extremely efficient, and are able to catalyse as many as 1,000 to 10,000,000 molecules every minute. This is due mainly to their high speciality, allowing enzyme and substrate to fit together like a "lock and key", which is one of the hypotheses of how the enzyme-substrate complex works (the active site is exactly complementary to the shape of the substrate), the other is of an induced fit where the active site is not exactly complementary but as the substrate binds with the active site, the shape changes very slightly to form