enzyme question

[Melissa Rojas]

in the simplest terms may someone please explain how enzymes catalyze biological reactions, and what factors affect enzyme kinetics?

[Jasmine Catalan 1H]

Hi so in simple terms enzymes act as a catalyst which allow a chemical reaction to occur. The enzyme will have an active site where substrates will bind to, to begin the reaction. A substrate being a molecule. This forms an enzyme substrate complex needed for the reaction to begin. Once this occurs the enzyme will speed up the reaction rate at which products are formed, it does not make more products it just makes products at a faster rate.

[Ethan10]

could and enzyme cataylist also allow for a reaction to start in the first place? or does it only act on increasing the speed of the reaction?

[Josie Rose 1E]

Enzymes are a source of reactions in biological systems. The active site usually can have a substrate bound to catalyze the reaction- speeding it up. An inhibitor could also bind there theoretically. As long as there isn’t an inhibitor, the reaction could proceed, just at a slower rate than with the substrate.

[Alondra Cortes 1F]

To add on to the other replies, temperature, pH, enzyme and substrate concentration can affect enzyme activity. For instance, increasing the amount of substrate can also increase the rate of the reaction. However, once all the enzymes have bound to a substrate, adding more substrate will have no effect on the reaction rate considering that there are no more available enzymes for them to bind to. A more thorough explanation of this and other factors can be found in the article I've linked below:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap- ... mes-review
I hope this helps!

[Alex Caracalla 1I]

Enzymes, like other catalysts, function by bringing down the activation energy needed for a reaction to occur. By bringing this threshold down, less energy is needed for a reaction to proceed, thus making it occur more quickly than without the enzyme. It’s important to note that enzymes/catalysts will increase the rate of the reverse reaction as well, since that is also dependent on the activation energy threshold.

[Leily Garcia 1C]

Enzymes are similar to chemical catalysts. They participate in the reaction without getting affected. In other words, they speed up the chemical reactions inside the cells without getting consumed. Enzymes are affected by the hydrogen ion concentration (pH) and the temperature. Enzymes are highly specific compared to other catalysts, and each enzyme is specialized for one reactant substance.
This reactant substance is called substrate, and it is specialized for one type of reaction or a few reactions. Enzymes lower the activation energy required to get the reaction started. Collectively, these are the most important properties of the enzyme.
There are several factors that affect the speed of an enzyme’s action, such as the concentration of the enzyme, the concentration of the substrate, temperature, hydrogen ion concentration (pH), and the presence of inhibitors.

[samaagwani-disc2L]

Enzymes are like chemical catalysts and they allow reactions to occur more quickly. The way this happens is that the enzyme decreases the activation energy which means that less energy is needed for the reaction to occur. This speeds it up. Enzymes can be affected though by numerous things like temperature changes, concentration of either the enzyme or the substrate, pH, presence of inhibitors and more. Overall though, enzymes are classified as a good thing because they help speed up reactions and decrease the amount of energy needed for a reaction to occur. I hope this helps:)