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Understanding Chemical Reactions and the Role of Enzymes in Cellular Processes

This overview details the fundamental concepts of chemical reactions, distinguishing between reactants and products. It emphasizes the crucial role enzymes play in accelerating these reactions by lowering activation energy, acting as catalysts that remain unchanged after the reaction. The specificity of enzymes for particular substrates is explained through the lock and key model. Additionally, environmental factors such as temperature, pH, and salt concentration influence enzyme activity, highlighting their importance in maintaining life-sustaining cellular processes.

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Understanding Chemical Reactions and the Role of Enzymes in Cellular Processes

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  1. Chemical Reactions How Enzymes Function

  2. Chemical Reaction • A chemical reaction is a process that changes or transforms one set of chemicals into another. • Reactants: the elements that you start with in your chemical reaction • Products: the elements that you end with • Examples: rust of metal, the formation of water

  3. How Enzymes Function • Enzymes speed up cellular reactions by lowering the amount of energy needed to start the reaction. • The energy level that must be overcome before a chemical reaction can begin is called the activation energy.

  4. How enzymes function • Enzymes act as molecules that function as catalyst. • Catalysts speed up chemical reactions • Enzymes increase the rate of reactions without being changed or used!

  5. Importance of Enzymes • Without enzymes the chemical reactions in the body would not take place fast enough to sustain life.

  6. Enzymes

  7. Specificity • Specific enzymes work for specific reactions. • The shape of the enzyme determines the chemicals it catalyzes. • A specific reactant that an enzyme acts on is called a substrate.

  8. Substrates • A substrate fits inot a region of the enzyme called the active site. • When a substrate binds to the active site it slight changes shape. • The way substrates fit into enzymes is called the lock and key model.

  9. Cellular Effects on Enzymes • The environment of a cell may have an effect on enzyme activity. • Temperature • Salt concentration • pH • The enzymes work best when organisms fall in homeostatic ranges.

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