Abstract
This experiment consisted of setting up a control group of starch in various temperature and then placing both fungal amylases and bacterial amylases in a mixture of starch and placing the solution of amylase and starch in various temperatures of water. After a certain amount of time- different amount of time needs to be used in order to have reliable results- iodine is added in a well on spot plates, then two drops of the mixture of amylase-starch is added from each temperature used, by adding iodine into the plates the mixture will show how much starch was hydrolyzed, this is used to calculate the amount of enzymatic activity each mixture had at the different set temperatures and at the different times the solution was extracted from. The experiment was designed to find the optimal temperature in which both fungal amylase and bacterial amylase could function appropriately to produce an enzymatic reaction to a certain solution. The results concluded that bacterial amylase had an optimal temperature of around 60°C to 65°C. The fungal amylase on the other hand had an optimal temperature of around 40°C. These results show that the bacterial amylases have a higher optimal temperature than fungal amylases, meaning that bacterial amylases can react at higher temperature environments then the fungal amylases, that had a cooler optimal temperature that would denature at those high temperature conditions.
Introduction
Before doing research on amylases, an explanation of enzymes is needed to fully understand each part of the experiment. An enzyme is a protein that helps speed up a chemical reaction (Raven, 2011). An enzyme is a catalyst, which is made by living cells; usually enzymes assist in developing the metabolic process of cells (Underkofler et al, 1958). The way in which enzymes speed up the chemical reaction is by lowering the activation
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