Question

5. All metabolic reactions in living organisms are enzyme mediated. Each enzyme is specific for one (or only a very few similar types of) reaction. Given this, there are approximately as many different kinds of enzymes as there are reactions.

a. What characteristics do all enzymes share?

    

b. What characteristics can differ among enzymes?

Answer 1

a. The common characteristic of all enzymes are as follows:

1) All enzymes are protein in nature and known as biological catalyst, have a specific 3 dimensional structure which is composed of its substrate binding site. In this active substrate binding site only one substrate can lock in the site and the enzymes goes through a conformational change in its structure and thus no other substrate can bind in this site.

2) Enzyme enhances the chemical reaction and reduces the activation energy to start up the reaction.

b. The characteristic which differ enzymes from each other are as follows:

1) The optimal pH and salinity of all enzymes is slightly different from each other.

2) Structure and size can vary in different enzyme which causes specific substrate binding for each enzyme.