Club75 - Enzymes - What are they?

Greetings to all and sundry on this platform once again, I am here to share with you all another science episode and this is going to be about Enzymology. This is one of the most interesting topics in Biochemistry and I am very glad to share with you all how enzymes functions. Without much ado, I will go straight to the topic and throw more light on that.

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What is Enzymology?

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Enzymology is a branch of biochemistry that deals with the study of enzymes including their characteristics, activity, and importance. The study of enzymes is very important for us as humans to know because almost every aspect of our life consists of enzymes. Now let's look at what these enzymes are?

What are Enzymes?

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Enzymes are biological catalysts that accelerate the speed of reactions by lowering the free energy of activation (activation energy). Enzymes speed up reaction through the binding of the transition state of a reaction better than the substrate in the reaction.

It should be noted that enzymes do not take part in the reaction and so remains the same or unchanged at the end of a reaction. It doesn't also have an effect on the equilibrium of the reaction too.

There are two ways whereby catalysts increase the formation of products and they are;

1. By decreasing the activation energy or energy barrier for the formation of products
2. By increasing the chances of collisions of reactants molecules for the formation of products.

Now let's take a look at what catalytic power is as a term used in enzymology.

Catalytic Power is a characteristic of enzymes which is referred to as the ratio of the catalyzed rate of reaction to uncatalyzed rate of reaction.

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General Characteristics or Properties of Enzymes?

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The following includes the general characteristics or properties of enzymes;

• They have milder reaction conditions
• They have the capacity for regulation
• They also have greater reaction specificity
• They have higher reaction rates or catalytic power.

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Classes of Enzymes?

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Generally, there are six classes of enzymes and they are;

• Oxidoreductases - oxidation-reduction reaction
• Transferases - the transfer of functional groups
• Hydrolases - hydrolysis reaction
• Lyases - removal of groups to form a double bond
• Isomerases - isomerization reactions
• Ligases - formation of bonds

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Nomenclature of Enzymes or How to name enzymes

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In this section, we shall look at the nomenclature of enzymes or naming enzymes.

Examples are simply named using the addition of the suffix "-ase" with the exception of Trypsin and Chymotrypsin. They do not follow that rule. For example, Arginase, Urease, lactase, etc.

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Importance of Enzymes

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The following includes some of the importance of enzymes;

• Enzymes helps in breaking down complex food substance into smaller pieces (digestion)
• Enzymes aid by speeding up the reactions within the cells of the human body.
• It also helps in the process of digestion of food in the human body.
• Enzymes are very useful in the production of food for humans.
• They help in speeding up chemical reactions

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Factors affecting Enzymes Activity

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There are certain factors that affect enzymes activity and we shall discuss them here in this article.

• Temperature:- It is one of the factors that affect the activity of an enzyme. It should be noted that enzymes are denatured at higher temperatures but function correctly at optimal temperatures. There are certain enzymes that can function at higher temperatures, others too at lower temperature levels and some too can function at both higher and low-temperature zone.

• Concentration:- the speed of reaction increases as the concentration of enzymes also increases

• pH Concentration:- It should be noted that each and every enzyme and the pH at which its best function is termed as the optimal pH. There are certain enzymes that function at low pH whilst others function at Higher pH and some at only optimal pH. Certain enzymes can perform at both high and low pH levels.

Thank you all for reading and passing by my post. I hope to see you all again in my next science episode. Have a nice day.

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