Bio Report

I. Aim

The aim of the three experiments is actually to investigate the effects of different factors such as temperature, pH, and concentration of substrate, on the activity of the enzymes. By conducting these three separate experiments also, three graphs are able to be obtained where the trend of each factor affecting on the enzyme activity is shown and described clearly.

II. Hypothesis

Experiment 1 (Effect of Temperature):

* As the temperature increases, the height of the bubble will increase too, indicating a faster rate of reaction.

Experiment 2 (Effect of pH):

* Enzymes are affected by changes in pH. Extremely high or low pH values generally result in complete loss of activity for most enzymes.

Experiment 3 (Effect of Substrate Concentration):

* The more substrate added to the reaction the faster the rate of the reaction will be. However, at a saturation point, the enzyme will start to reach a maximum velocity slowing down the enzyme activity compared to the increased rate before this saturation point.

III. Introduction

Enzymes

Enzymes are defined as biological catalysts, present in living systems in which it increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being changed itself. It performs its function by lowering down the activation energy of the substrate. In these three experiments, the enzyme that is being used is potatoes. After doing some research, potatoes are proven to contain several enzymes such as catalase (the most well known and common), oxidase, and peroxidase.

Catalase is a common enzyme found in nearly all living organisms that are exposed to oxygen, where it functions to catalyze the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen. Catalase has one of the highest turnover numbers of all enzymes; one molecule of catalase can convert 40 million molecules of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen each second. Catalase is a tetramer of four polypeptide chains, each over 500 amino acids long. It contains four...