Effect of Concentration on an Enzyme - Essay Example

Enzymes are substrate-specific. They bind up with active sites on which they act upon. The by-product hydrogen peroxide is extremely toxic to living organisms' cells. Aerobic respiration uses the oxygen produced from the reaction for oxidation of nutrients. Hydrogen peroxide is produced from the conversion of amino acids to lipids and from conversion of lipids to carbohydrates. The enzyme catalase is found in abundance in plants and in human beings. Without this enzyme, most of the biochemical reactions in the cells will be extremely slow (Oslo, 2011).

The major function of catalase in living organisms is to prevent the accumulation of toxic substances such as hydrogen peroxide from accumulating in the body. According to Michaeli’s Constant principle (Catalase kinetics) the rate of a catalyzed increases first during the first stages of reaction then it slowly levels off regardless of how much the concentration has been used in that experiment. This further implies that an enzyme reaction is slow at low substrate concentration because after releasing products the molecules of the enzyme become free.

At very high concentrations the reverse happens. In this experiment, filter paper is immersed into an enzyme and then placed into hydrogen peroxide. Oxygen is produced during this process and it is trapped and measured using the buoyancy disk. Time is measured from the time the buoyancy disk is from the bottom of the container until the time it will reach the surface of the solution. The reaction proceeds as follows; 2H2O2 catalase 2H2O + O2 This equation shows enzyme catalase converting hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and water.

Because enzymes are proteins, they can be denatured by high temperatures. They are also inactivated at low temperatures. Material and method used Potato, gram balance, blender, ice insulated ice bucket or water cooler, water bath at 10?, 30? and 40?, 500ml 1% H2O2, 1ml distilled water, 1ml adjustable pipettor, filter paper disks, forceps, 5 50ml beakers, 100ml graduated cylinder, thermometer and 1.5 ml plastic micro-centrifuge tubes. Procedure Six reaction tubes are prepared each containing distilled water and citrate buffer.

H2O2 with higher concentration is used. The six tubes are then labeled according to their respective temperatures. The tubes are then placed in an appropriate water bath and left for 10 minutes in order for them to reach an equilibrium of their respective temperatures. The enzyme is then added and shaken well taking the reading at 0.00. The reading is maintained as a control reading for her remaining five experiments. Hydrogen peroxide is then added and the test tubes quickly returned to the water baths.

The test tubes are allowed to stay in the water for as long as possible but taking the readings at every two minutes time interval and the data recorded. The spectrophotometer should be as close as possible to the water baths in order to end up with accurate readings and the tubes should be wiped out with tissue paper before they are placed in the spectrophotometer (T, 2006). Results and analysis 50g freshly peeled potato cubes are placed in 50ml cold distilled water. Crushed ice is then added to the mixture, which is then placed into a blender.