Enzyme Lab Report Essay

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Pages: 2

Enzymes are substances produced by living organisms that act as a catalysts to specific biochemical reactions. Enzymes accomplish this by lowering the activation energy (the minimum amount of energy needed for a reaction to occur). Enzymes can lower the activation rate in multiple ways: Enzymes can alter the temperature, alter the pH, alter the pressure or twist/bend the reactants. These alterations all put a strain on the chemical bonds in the reactants allowing them to react with less energy. However, not any enzyme can act as a catalyst to any reaction. Each reactant or substrate has a specific shape that bind to an enzyme’s active site, which is also a specific shape. Like a lock and a key. Although the substrate and the enzyme need to …show more content…
Enzymes can become denatured via heat, chemical reactions and changes in pH. When an enzyme is denatured the shape is altered so that it can no longer attach to substrates and thus is no longer functional. This lab will analyze one specific reaction: The reaction between the substrate “catechol” and the enzyme “catecholase.” If the substrate “catechol” is introduced to the enzyme “catecholase” then a reaction can occur, producing the product “benzoquinone” because the enzyme will lower the activation energy enough for the reaction to occur. However, without both present, the reaction cannot occur. Because only test tube three contains all the necessary ingredients, benzoquinone should only be present in test tube three. Furthermore, because as product formation increases so does the color intensity test tube three should have a larger amount of light absorbance when measured in the spectrophometer than tubes one and two The purpose of this lab is to determine the difference in product formation between one solution, containing both catechol and it’s complentaryenzyme catecholase, and two other solutions, each missing an ingredient, by measuring the difference in light absorbance between the three