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What are enzymes?
They are biological catalysts and are used in metabolic reactions, lowering the activation energy and are not used up in the reaction.
Enzyme structure
They are globular proteins with a specific tertiary shape
How do enzymes work?
Enzymes combine reversibly with substrate molecules to form an enzyme-substrate complex.
Enzyme + Substrate → Enzyme-substrate complex
Enzyme-substrate complex
The enzyme-substrate complex then breaks down to give the product and release the enzyme in an unchanged form.
Enzyme-substrate complex → product + enzyme
What are the 2 theories?
- Lock & key hypothesis
- Induced fit hypothesis
Lock & Key
Enzymes are specific to substrates they bind to meaning that only one type of substrate fits into the active site of the enzyme.
The enzyme's active site has a complementary tertiary structure to a substrate molecule, and they form an enzyme-substrate complex and then release the products.
Induced Fit
Enzymes are specific to substrates they bind to meaning that only one type of substrate fits into the active site of the enzyme.
When the enzyme and substrate form a complex, the structure of the enzyme is altered so that the active site of the enzyme fits around the substrate.