Lab 4: Enzyme Kinetics

Set of vocabulary flashcards based on the key concepts and procedures from Lab 4: Enzyme Kinetics.

Enzyme

A protein that acts as a catalyst to speed up chemical reactions by lowering activation energy.

Acid Phosphatase

An enzyme that catalyzes the removal of phosphate groups from organic molecules, best functioning in acidic environments.

Vmax

The maximal rate at which an enzyme can catalyze a reaction, corresponding to the plateau on a Michaelis-Menten plot.

Km (Michaelis constant)

The substrate concentration at which the reaction velocity is half of Vmax; an indirect measure of substrate affinity for the enzyme.

Substrate

The reactant upon which an enzyme acts; in this lab, nitrophenyl phosphate is the substrate.

Michaelis-Menten Plot

A graph that depicts the relationship between substrate concentration [S] and reaction velocity (v) for an enzymatic reaction.

Spectrophotometer

An instrument used to measure the absorbance of different wavelengths of light in a solution.

Absorbance

The amount of light absorbed by a solution, used to determine the concentration of substances like nitrophenol in lab experiments.

Hydrolysis

A chemical reaction involving the breaking of a bond in a molecule using water.

pH Treatment

The specific pH conditions under which an enzyme activity experiment is conducted; in this lab, pH 5.7 and 9.2 are used.