Potato catalase: a study of enzyme action
Introduction
Thousands of chemical reactions take place within living cells of organisms. Many of these reactions can also be carried out in the laboratory, but outside the cell, they are often much slower. To speed up these reactions so they would take place as fast as they do in cells would require temperatures or pHs that are inconsistent with life. How then is it possible for reactions to occur in cells at rates fast enough to meet the needs of the body? The answer is that cells produce special proteins known as enzymes that catalyze biological reactions, markedly increasing their rates.
The primary species acted on by an enzyme is called the substrate of that enzyme. Most enzymes are named after the substrate on which they act by simply adding –ase to the root name of the substrate. A lipase then, would be an enzyme that acts on lipids, sucrase on sucrose, and so forth. Many enzymes, such as chymotrypsin, trypsin and lysozyme, have older names that do not end in –ase.
Some enzymes owe their specific reactivity only to their specific protein structure. Others,