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The Effect of Temperature on the Rate of Enzyme Activity Essay example

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Enzymes are important to cells because they allow both the making and the breaking up of bonds. This would happen naturally and over time, but cells do not have the time to wait years, sometimes hundreds, for that to happen. With the use of enzymes, such tasks can take less than a second. This happens because enzymes are catalysts, and are able to speed up reactions. Enzymes, remaining unaffected by the process of catalysis, can continue to perform their function multiple times.
However, like most things, breaking and making bonds require energy. This energy causes substrates to change. The transition state is when substrate bonds are able to break up by themselves. Enzymes help bringing substrates to the transition stage by slowing down …show more content…

Not enough salt changes the shape of functions due to the incredibly strong attractions between enzymes. On the other hand, too much salt causes enzymes to denature.
Hydrogen peroxide is highly reactive and forms during metabolic reactions that require oxygen. It can also form oxygen radicals that oxidize organic molecules and are potentially quite harmful. The enzyme catalase is able to neutralize hydrogen peroxide and protects the molecules that are important for life. Catalase is an example of an anti-oxidant, aptly named due to its ability to interfere with the oxidization of other molecules which causes damage to cells.
Catalase is a peroxisome enzyme and has four hemes. Hemes are small organic compounds with an iron atom at the center. Catalase has to hold hydrogen peroxide, its substrate, close to a heme. The molecule is then able to break up by two hydrogen peroxide molecules alternately oxidizing and reducing the iron atom within the heme.
The purpose of testing the temperature on the rate of enzyme activity is to examine how different temperature might increase or decrease activity. Adding energy in the form of heat to the enzyme will most likely increase activity because more reactions are able to take place. However, cooling down the enzyme and thus removing energy will most likely slow down the process because there is less energy available for the enzymes to utilize for reactions. However,

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