Enzyme-Substrate Simulation

Pre-Lab: Study the diagram below so you have a mental image of an enzyme and its active site.

(image take from http://www.yellowtang.org/images/lysozyme_enzyme_c_la_784.jpg)

Study the pictures and reflect upon the following questions:

  1. What was the purpose of the performing the enzyme-substrate simulation?
  2. What does it mean to gather “baseline data”?
  3. What is an enzyme? 
  4. What is a substrate?
  5. What symbolized the enzyme in our simulation?  What symbolized the substrate?
  6. Identify the active site in each picture.
  7. Can an enzyme be used in more than once?  In other words, once an enzyme reacts with a substrate may it react with another (identical) substrate?
  8. What happens to the physical structure of an enzyme when it is denatured?
  9. Name two environmental conditions that can cause an enzyme to denature.
  10. What is an inhibitor?
  11. What happened to the amount of substrate over time?
  12. Consider the information you read in the August 10, 2007 Science article called “The Big Chill” (an additional copy of the article can be found on Edline).   How does the information in this article relate to the the Enzyme-Substrate simulation performed in class? 

Trial 1: Baseline

trial-1.jpg  

 

 

Trial 2: Denaturation

trial-2a.jpg

 

 

 

Trial 3: Competitive Inhibitor

trial-3.jpg

 

 

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