Lactase Enzymes Lab Report

Enzymes are biological molecules (proteins) that act as a catalyst and help complex reactions occur everywhere in life, for example a piece of steak that is being digested into energy. Molecules found at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and these enzymes exchange them into differing molecules known as products. Nearly all-metabolic processes in a cell need enzymes in order to function at rates that are fast enough to sustain existence.
Those who are lactose intolerant are simply individuals whose body does not produce enough lactase. Lactase is an enzyme found in the digestive system and is used to breakdown and digest lactose (dairy sugar) . Lactase breaks down the sugar found in lactose into monosaccharides – glucose
I weighed out lactose portions of 0.5g, 1.0g, 2.0g, 4.0g, and 8.0g of lactose and added them to the individual tubes of pH 3. From there I calculated and gathered the number of substrate molecules produced from the reactions. I repeated this same procedure with the pH 5, 7, 9, and 11 tubes of solution.
The results showed that with each increased amount of lactose added to the different pH solutions showed an increase in production of substrate molecules. 0.5g of lactose showed a production number of 19 (pH3), 39 (pH7), 72 (pH7), 45 (pH9), and 24 (pH11) etc… Refer to the table below. The independent variable was the pH solution, while the dependent variable was the lactose concentrate. Since the amount of lactose had vary weights in a constant of pH solution.

If the enzyme catalase is placed in different solutions containing different pH levels, the enzyme will function most effectively at a neutral pH, or a pH of 7. This is proven through the data collected in the experiment. The reason for this is because the human body functions at a optimum pH6 when digesting lactose, which makes the pH7 in the experiment the most prime event to produce the optimum amount of substrate