Scientific Principle / Essential Understanding

Enzymes are biological catalysts (also known as biocatalysts) that speed up biochemical reactions in living organisms. They can also be extracted from cells and then used to catalyse a wide range of commercially important processes. For example, they have important roles in the production of sweetening agents and the modification of antibiotics, they are used in washing powders and various cleaning products, and they play a key role in analytical devices and assays that have clinical, forensic and environmental applications. The word ‘enzyme’ was first used by the German physiologist Wilhelm Kühne in 1878, when he was describing the ability of yeast to produce alcohol from sugars, and it is derived from the Greek words en (meaning ‘within’) and zume (meaning ‘yeast’).

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, significant advances were made in the extraction, characterization and commercial exploitation of many enzymes, but it was not until the 1920s that enzymes were crystallized, revealing that catalytic activity is associated with protein molecules. For the next 60 years or so it was believed that all enzymes were proteins, but in the 1980s it was found that some ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules are also able to exert catalytic effects. These RNAs, which are called ribozymes, play an important role in gene expression. In the same decade, biochemists also developed the technology to generate antibodies that possess catalytic properties. These so-called ‘abzymes’ have significant potential both as novel industrial catalysts and in therapeutics. Notwithstanding these notable exceptions, much of classical enzymology, and the remainder of this essay, is focused on the proteins that possess catalytic activity.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a weak acid that is a colorless liquid at room temperature. Although it is primarily known for its usage as a solution in bleach, ripening agent, and disinfectant (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2004), it is also known to be a chemical compound that is produced in the human body! One of the purposes of hydrogen peroxide is to fight off bacteria/infectious cells. When the immune system activates (in response to harmful bacteria that have invaded the body), mitochondria, in certain cells, produce hydrogen peroxide (Bao, Avshalumov, Patel, Lee, Miller, Chang, Rice, 2009) in order to destroy the invading bacteria. Although helpful in keeping the normal human being healthy, too much of H2O2 can cause health problems as deadly as cancer and diabetes (Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, 2008). To prevent the body from suffering the negative effects of hydrogen peroxide, an enzyme, known as "catalase", breaks down hydrogen peroxide into nontoxic substances.

Enzyme analysis, in blood serum, measurement of the activity of specific enzymes in a sample of blood serum, usually for the purpose of identifying a disease. The enzymes normally are concentrated in cells and tissues where they perform their catalytic function; in disease, however, certain enzymes tend to leak into the circulation from the injured cells and tissues. More than 50 enzymes have been found in human serum; in routine clinical practice, the most common ones include amylase, a starch-digesting enzyme that originates chiefly from the pancreas and salivary glands; its serum activity is usually elevated in the early stages of acute inflammation of the pancreas, in obstruction of the pancreatic duct, and in mumps; lipase, a fat-digesting enzyme that also originates in the pancreas and that shows the same clinical variations as amylase in disorders involving the pancreas; alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme found in most body tissues, notably in bone and liver, and that usually shows elevated serum values in such conditions as Paget’s disease (inflammation of the bone) and osteomalacia (softening of the bone), as well as in hepatitis and obstructive jaundice; acid phosphatase, an enzyme found in most body tissue but in unusually high concentration in the adult prostate gland; it is released into the circulation in metastatic cancer of the prostate

My original hypothesis has been proven correct and the pH levels of 5 and 7 had the most visible reactions. As the the pH level goes up the enzyme activity, shown by the height of the bubbles, also increases showing that the higher the pH level ( on the range of 3-5, 7) is the more optimum enzyme activity is. This is likely the case because the human body levels of pH is in the range of 5-7 and because peroxidase was meant to work within human body and other such organisms.