Enzymes

Enzymes are biochemicals that act as catalysts. A catalyst is a substance that changes the rate of a chemical reaction, without being changed itself. There are a great number (more than 2500) of enzymes at work, keeping us alive. All enzymes are proteins. Proteins are substances containing amino acids.

Although there is a formal system for naming enzymes, many of them have names ending in –ase. Such names include the types of materials that the enzymes work with. Thus, if an enzyme works with fats (i.e. lipids), it will be called a lipase. If it works with table sugar (sucrose), it will be called sucrase. If it is concerned with milk sugar (lactose), it will be called lactase. There are some enzymes, however, whose names do not suggest anything about their nature. For example, pepsin is an enzyme that works in the digestive tract. Another would be rhodanese, which can be found in the liver and the kidneys.

An Example of an Enzyme in Action

Suppose that we dissolve 1 teaspoon of sucrose (table sugar) in a glass of water. It will remain a solution of sucrose in water, essentially forever. Then let us add a small amount of the enzyme sucrase (also called invertase). Immediately, the sucrose will split into equal amounts of glucose and fructose. Now we have a glass with a solution containing ½ teaspoon of glucose plus ½ teaspoon of fructose. This splitting of sucrose is often called the inversion of sucrose. Hence, the enzyme is sometimes called invertase.

It is important to understand that enzymes cannot make impossible reactions occur. There are two factors that determine whether or not a given reaction will occur. (Don’t be frightened by the two words introduced here; they’re really not that hard!)

• The first is called thermodynamics. This simply says that the total energy of the products must be less than the total energy of the starting materials. In other words, reactions can only take place in a downhill fashion, energetically speaking.

• The second factor is called kinetics, which simply refers to the speed of the reaction. In the reaction involving sucrose splitting to glucose and fructose, the energy considerations favor the reaction going forward, that is, splitting. The kinetics, on the other hand, are very, very slow under ordinary conditions, to such a point that no change will occur over many lifetimes. Once we add a bit of the enzyme sucrase, however, the kinetics, or speed of the reaction, increase dramatically. Usually, enzymes cause a reaction to run by a factor of thousands to trillions faster.

What is a co-enzyme?

A co-enzyme is a non-protein that helps some enzymes to do their jobs. Not all enzymes need co-enzymes, but those that do simply cannot function without them. Many of the B vitamins act as co-enzymes. Another example of a co-enzyme is zinc

Examples of Co-enzymes at Work

In the metabolism of glucose, there are several examples of the use of co-enzymes. The following co-enzymes are necessary in the various steps of the glucose metabolism: Vitamin B3 (niacin), Vitamin B1 (thiamin), pantothenic acid, and biotin. There are many more biochemical reactions that employ a multitude of enzymes and co-enzymes just to get us through the day.

The human body is a very complicated and efficient chemical factory. I sometimes wonder how it can work at all!

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