ENZYMES

Before you begin your lab investigating what affects enzyme activity, I would like you to go to the following website and learn a little bit about enzymes. After visiting this website, I want you to create a testable hypothesis. Write me an "if, then....." statement about what you think heat will do to the enzyme activity, (i.e., increased heat will improve enzyme activity,lower heat will increase/decrease enzyme activity....)

Enzyme reading and pre lab activity

Enzymes are used to reduce the amount of energy needed to start the reaction or the ** ACTIVATION ENERGY **.Look at the following graph to see what this means. The blue line shows a reaction that happens (occurs) without an enzyme. If you go up the "Y" axis energy is increased. The red line shows the same reaction with an ENZYMES help. Notice the energy needed is lower, therefore the reaction can happen a lot faster. Meaning you can get what you need more quickly.

There is method that ENZYMES use called the ** Induced fit model **, meaning that the substrates and the active site are pretty much the same shape but the active site will change slightly to match the substrates shape. The picture below shows what I am talking about:

After you have finished the web portion of the lab, partner up with some one and do the lab from page 164 of the textbook. The first thing you should do is create your hypothesis and write it down on a sheet of paper. When you have done that, think about creating your lab procedures. You have a hotplate, ice, and room temperature water. You will be investigating how heat affects enzyme activity. So you will be boiling and freezing a potatoe, and you will keep on at room temperature. So you need to CONTROL the amount of time you run the expoeriment. If you boil for 10 minutes then you need to freeze for 10 and/or keep at room temperature for 10 minutes. After tou have decided on your times, run your experiment. There are 4 questions to answer on page 165 of text (1-4). complete these questions and you are done with the lab. Be sure your lab table is clean and all materials are disposed of.