Enzyme Lab Report

Dana Calderone
Responses of Enzyme Activity from pH and Concentration
Abstract
Enzymes are the key to many of the chemical reactions that our bodies depend on to live.
Without enzymes, we would not exist. These biological catalysts speed up the reactions as well as reduce the amount of activation energy needed to complete the process. Knowing how important enzymes are to us, it is important to realize what they require to function. They need select conditions and rates to work right. These conditions can range from what level of pH to use or the right concentration of the enzyme itself. The rate of efficiently of the enzyme activity relies on these conditions. They will function poorly if the right condition is not available.
Exercise A tested
These chemical reactions take place in organisms and almost all crucial reactions in a biological cells need these enzymes. Enzymes act as biological catalysts. Their power as catalysts enables biological reactions to occur usually in milliseconds (Wolfenden,2008).
Conversion is the key to enzyme function. Substrates are defined as the starting molecules whereas products are the ending molecules. Enzymes convert these substrates into

Dana Calderone different products. However, enzymes are selective when it comes to choosing a substrate. The substrates bind to the enzyme’s active site. Enzymes have complex, tertiary structures. Enzymes are vital in speeding up a reaction. They achieve this by lowering the activation energy of a reaction (Klucevsek). Activation energy is the absolute minimum energy that must be inserted into a chemical system to achieve a chemical reaction. Enzyme activity can be manipulated by many factors such as enzyme concentration as well as the pH of their environment.
The objective of this exercise is to learn the relationship of enzyme activity and the enzymes environmental conditions The hypothesis tested in exercise A was that the
After 5 minutes, a cuvette was filled with the test tube pH 4B solution to blank the spectrophotometer. Then, a cuvette filled with the pH 4 test tube solution was inserted into the spectrophotometer and measured with the 420 nm wavelength. This procedure was repeated for the remaining test tubes.
Exercise B required 4 test tubes labeled with “A,B,C, or D” and they held the solution of different pH buffer and potato juice volumes, and 1 mL of water (Table 4). These tubes were the blanks for the spectrophotometer for recalibrating it. The additional 4 experimental test tubes were composed of the same contents but 1 mL of the substrate catechol was added instead of the
1 mL of water (Table 2). These test tubes were labeled the same as the previous blanks. The spectrophotometer wavelength was set to 420 nm just like exercise A. After the spectrophotometer was adjusted using the blank A, the catechol was added to tube A. The tube was covered with paraffin and the absorption was measured within 5 seconds. The absorbance

Dana Calderone readings were continued for every minute for 6 minutes. Procedures were identical for the other
3 test tubes.
Table 1 Enzyme pH Blank