How Do Enzymes Work?

What is an Enzyme? In simple terms it is a protein that catalyses a metabolic reaction. Something that makes a reaction go much faster. Enzymes are used in most metabolic reaction in the body such as respiration and photosynthesis in plants. They are also heavily involved in the digestion process. Enzymes such as Amylase, Lipase and Pepsin are amongst the many enzymes that help digest food. They are absolutely vital for human survival and they are very delicate, a small change in temperature or a small change in concentration can dramatically change the efficiency of the enzyme and as a result, that metabolic reaction slows down.

How they work?

- An Enzyme has a complementary shape to a substrate. The substrate is the thing that needs to be broken down eg. Starch. Complementary means that only that substrate will fit into that enzyme

- Each Enzyme has an active site. This is the area of the Enzyme that the substrate fits into.

- An Enzyme and substrate bind together via their complementary shape. The substrate binds to the active site of an enzyme

- The active site of the Enzyme changes shape slightly to apply more pressure onto the substrate to overcome its intermolecular bonds that hold it together. This is called the Induced Fit Model.

- The substrate is broken down into its products and detaches itself from the active site.

- Same process happens again and again