Enzymes Lab Report

Enzymes are proteins serving as catalysts that carry out thousands of chemical reactions that occur in living cells. A catalyst speeds up a chemical reaction by changing the rate of the reaction without being consumed by the reaction. In an enzyme - catalyzed reaction the substance acted upon that is called substrate binds to the active site of the enzyme. An enzyme-substrate complex is formed held by hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonds and ionic bonds. The substrate is converted to reaction products by catalytic action of the enzyme. Enzymes are proteins composed of long chains of amino acids, and like all proteins they have a unique three dimensional structure called conformation. This unique amino acid sequence make each enzyme specific for certain reactions, and it is critical for its function. Peroxidase is an enzyme widely distributed in plants and animal cells and its substrates are hydrogen peroxidase, guaiacol( Biology Department, 2015). Hydrogen peroxide is a toxic by product of aerobic metabolism, while guaiacol is an organic chemical produced by the guaiac tree Central America. Guaiacol in its …show more content…
The temperatures used were cold ( 4 ○C), warm (35○C,) hot (55○C), and boiling(100○C)( Biology Department, 2015). We repeated the same procedure according to our lab manual. After this step we recorded our readings. Between the readings we put back the tube into the ice bath to keep it cold. The third condition studied is the effect of different pH’s on enzyme activity. We repeated the procedure for pH2, pH 8, and pH 10 and record all our readings( Biology Department, 2015). In the end we created data tables for each condition such as effect of enzyme concentration, temperature, and pH by adding them my baseline data for that condition. Then we created three separate graphs showing the effects of peroxidase activity at various enzyme concentrations, temperature and