Enzymes: What They Do, Why They Are Important - Essay Example

?Enzymes: What ?They Do, Why They Are Important Enzymes are the cornerstone of life in every being. It is a type of cell that is found in every man, animal, plant, and other life forms. Amino acids of various shapes and sizes, often numbering anywhere from 100 to 100,000 form the basis of enzymes which are considered to be proteins. The amino acid chain carries a unique shape which is tailor made to help the chemical reaction necessary for the amino acid to perform a specific action. Enzymes can therefore be considered to be catalysts for specific actions or reactions such as in the case of food digestion. These enzyme reactions are chemical processes that happen quite fast an are actually unnoticeable. In human beings, Digestive Enzymes are highly important in the process of breaking down digested food and its transformation into energy proteins. An enzyme is basically a part of the human DNA chain. The DNA of a person serves as the instruction manual of the biological system in the production of protein cells, which, for the basis of this research, we will call enzymes. Therefore, the Human Gene, which is a part of the DNA serves as the template of the human body in forming an enzyme. These enzymes are stored within cells which are molded and shaped for easy chemical recognition and reaction. This chemical process will be discussed further within this paper. Scientists have been studying the importance of enzymes to the human anatomy for well over a century. The earliest enzyme studies date all the way back to 1835 when Swedish biochemist Jon Jakob Berzelius first recognized and named the actions he observed within the enzymes as catalytic. But it was not until 1926 when Cornell University's James B. Sumner was able to extract an enzyme in its purest form from a jack bean which he was able to successfully isolate and crystallize. He won the Noble Peace Prize in 1947 for this remarkable accomplishment. However, he shared this honor with two other people, John H. Northtrop and Wendell M. Stanley of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. They developed a precipitation technique which was used to crystallize several enzymes (Introduction to Enzymes, 2). Enzymes all come into existence because of proteins. These particular proteins have high molecular weight compounds ranging from 10,000 - 2,000,000 and are composed of amino acids linked by peptide bonds (Introduction to Enzymes, 2). Enzymes cannot be taken for granted in the daily function of the human body. It is the most vital chemical component of our system because our heart, lungs, liver, eyes, skin, basically all our major and minor organs are dependent upon enzymes in order to keep our body in running condition. Without these enzymes, our body will not be able to prevent degenerative diseases, we will are at a rapid pace, and our energy will not be able to sustain our daily physical functions. Think of the enzymes as the monetary currency of our body. When we eat, we put a deposit into our enzyme bank where it is broken down by digestive enzymes and completely digested in order to insure the absorption of nutrients which our body can draw upon whenever our energy level runs low. If our body is deprived of enzymes, it will cease to function and will eventually die out. One must bear in mind however that since enzymes comprise different chemical needs of the human system, these chemical reactions that are necessary in order to sustain human life only occur when necessary. In actuality, the enzymes inside the cell direct which particular chemical will be triggered and created in order to sustain the energy level of a person. In order to reach this equilibrium state at the fastest possible time, enzymes lower the activation energy needed for a chemical reaction. This biochemical reaction numbers about 4,000 but the enzyme that serves as the catalyst is not consumed by the reactions which is why there is no alteration in the equilibrium and metabolic pathway of these reactions. These metabolic pathways are created by several enzymes working together. As these chemicals are broken down, each enzyme is absorbed by the other creating a substrate. While undergoing this particular breakdown process, the first enzyme could actually be functioning at a lower level while being absorbed by the second enzyme and induced into a high activity state instead. It is during these chemical breakdown and reaction times that enzymes either build necessary chemicals within a cell or breakdowns the cell as needed thus creating a totally new cell in the process. The human metabolism is highly dependent of the existence of and breakdown of enzymes within the body. Without enzymes, glycolisis, which is a metabolic pathway, could not exist. That is why it is important to control enzyme activity within a cell. The translation of enzyme genes happens during Enzyme production, an activity which can be either enhanced or diminished depending upon the chemical reaction in a cell environment and the needs of the human body. Consider this to be a form of gene regulation which is necessary for effective enzyme induction and inhibition. This is basically the way that we can insure that when a person falls ill, his system will continue to respond to medication such as penicillin instead of becoming immune to it. This is process therefore insures the proper drug interaction within the systems whenever necessary. However, enzymes can also be compartmentalized in order to insure the proper processing of the acids within cellular compartments located within specific metabolic pathways. For instance, fatty acids are processed by cytosol, endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus for use by the mitochondrion through ?-oxidation. It is important to control the activity of enzymes, which is why it is important that it be regulated by inhibitors and activators. One of these regulatory mechanisms is known as the negative feedback mechanism which regulates the product of the enzyme by regulating its concentration through adjustments in the rate of synthesis or intermediate metabolites in order to avoid excess manufacturing and allow for a stable internal environment for living organisms. The regulation of the activity is done through post tranlational modification which includes phosphyorylation, myristoylation, and blycosylation. There are however, times when certain enzymes become active upon introduction to a localized or different environment. This happens normally during times when certain viruses enter the system and activate upon contact with the acidic conditions thus causing the awakening and need to modify the enzyme structure in order to accommodate or eradicate the new enzyme. According to the literature contained in the paper Introduction to Enzymes: One of the properties of enzymes that makes them so important as diagnostic and research tools is the specificity they exhibit relative to the reactions they catalyze. A few enzymes exhibit absolute specificity; that is, they will catalyze only one particular reaction. Other enzymes will be specific for a particular type of chemical bond or functional group. The research continues to list the four distinct types of specificity by group and definition as: 1. Absolute specificity - the enzyme will catalyze only one reaction. 2. Group specificity - the enzyme will act only on molecules that have specific functional groups, such as amino, phosphate and methyl groups. 3. Linkage specificity - the enzyme will act on a particular type of chemical bond regardless of the rest of the molecular structure. 4. Stereochemical specificity - the enzyme will act on a particular steric or optical isomer. Along with these groups, enzymes are also further broken down in classification by the kind of chemical reaction catalyzed. The research classifies the names as follows: I. Addition or removal of water A. Hydrolases - these include esterases, carbohydrases, nucleases, deaminases, amidases, and proteases B. Hydrases such as fumarase, enolase, aconitase and carbonic anhydrase II. Transfer of electrons A. Oxidases B. Dehydrogenases III. Transfer of a radical A. Transglycosidases - of monosaccharides B. Transphosphorylases and phosphomutases - of a phosphate group C. Transaminases - of amino group D. Transmethylases - of a methyl group E. Transacetylases - of an acetyl group IV. Splitting or forming a C-C bond A. Desmolases V. Changing geometry or structure of a molecule A. Isomerases VI. Joining two molecules through hydrolysis of pyrophosphate bond in ATP or other tri-phosphate A. Ligases Enzyme activity is highly important for homeostasis, which is the ability of the system to maintain a stable environment when a virus or other chemical imbalance presents itself to disrupt the normal condition and function of the system. This could be a mutation, overproduction, or underproduction or deletion of certain enzymes which then lead to so called genetic diseases. In the medical world, scientists often find a medical breakthrough when a lethal illness is discovered or cured by the removal or introduction of enzymes into the system. All of that can be accomplished by just the presence of absence of one gene in a person's DNA chain out of thousands of enzymes found within our bodies. These germline mutations within our DNA occur because the proteins themselves can easily be altered or deleted within the system depending upon the perceived need of the enzyme for particular chemicals within the body. (How Cells Work: Enzymes) The best example of this situation can be found within ones digestive system. Since our digestive enzymes are necessary for the production of energy we eat various products in order to continue producing the enzymes. However, we often eat foods, processed foods or junk foods that do not contain any digestive enzymes. Without the necessary enzymes that we get from eating natural foods, our system most often does not have enough enzymes with which to digest and convert an average meal into proteins and then energy. Our body is instead forced to use an excessive amount of metabolic enzymes in order to digest these foodless foods. (Nader) Over time, the depletion of the enzymes within our digestive systems cause all sorts of digestive problems such as gas, pain, and discomfort. The lack of nutrients necessary for assimilation and creation of new enzymes causes our system to incompletely digest the food thus causing toxicity which, when left unchecked leads to a weakened immune system. Works Cited Nader, Beverly. “What You Should Know About Digestive Enzymes”. Unlimited Visions - Nutrition. beverlynader.com. 1997. Web 25 October 2011. “Introduction to Enzymes”. worthington-biochem. worthington-biochem.com. n.d. Web. 25 October 2011. “Enzymes”. Cells. howstuffworks.com. 2011. Web. 25 October 2011. Read More