Enzymes

• enzymes are catalyst produced by living things

  • living things have thousands of different chemical reactions going on inside of them, these reactions are carefully controlled
  • you can't heat up the temperature inside a living creatures as cells will get damaged
  • living things produce enzymes that act as biological catalyst
  • a catalyst is a substance which increases the speed of a reaction without being changed or used up in the reaction
  • enzymes are large proteins and made up of amino acids
• enzymes have special shapes so they can catalyse reactions

  • chemical reactions usually involve things either being slit apart/ joined together
  • every enzyme is active
  • enzymes - usually catalyse 1 specific reaction
  • 'lock and key' - the active site changes shape a little as the substance binds to it to vet a tighter fit. This is called 'induced fit'.

  
• enzymes need the right temperature

  • higher temperature increase at first will increase the reaction but if it gets to hot some of the bonds holding the enzyme will break
  • they need to be at optimum temperature
  • if the pH is too high/low the pH interferes with the bonds holding the enzymes together
  • they have to be at optimum pH to work best at