Enzymes

in this video, we're going to begin our lesson on enzymes, and so an enzyme is defined as a molecule that catalyze is or speeds up a chemical reaction. And it's able to speed up the chemical reaction without being consumed by the chemical reaction, which means that the enzyme is not going to be altered by the end of the reaction. Now, if we take a look at our image down below, notice that we're comparing a non enzymatic reaction that has no enzyme to an enzymatic reaction that does have an enzyme and so notice on the left over here, what we're showing you are some reactant the starting material or the ingredients for a reaction being converted into the products over here on the right, but notice that no enzyme is involved, and typically, when there's absolutely no enzyme involved, then the reaction is going to occur really, really slow, too slow for, um, life to be able to rely on reactions that do not have enzymes and so noticed that over here on the right, we're showing you the same reaction and the same reaction. Over here. We have the substance being converted into the products and this time noticed that an enzyme is present and the enzyme is represented by this structure that you see down below. And so the enzyme, its job, its function is to catalyze or speed up the chemical reaction so that it occurs much, much faster. And so you can see that the same reaction is able to occur at a much, much faster rate, thanks to the enzyme. And so enzymes air all about catalyzing or speeding up chemical reactions. Now what's also important to note is that the term substrates is referring to the reactant of a chemical reaction that is catalyzed by an enzyme. And so if an enzyme is involved, then the sub, the reactant are referred to specifically as substrates. And so you could see that the substrates are pretty much the same exact thing as the reactant. And really, the only difference is that substrates implies that an enzyme is involved, whereas reactant does not necessarily imply that an enzyme is involved. And so this year concludes our brief introduction to enzymes and how they act as catalysts to speed up chemical reactions and substrates are the reactant oven enzymatic reaction, and so we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward in our course, and we'll also get to learn a lot more about enzymes as we move forward, So I'll see you all in our next video.

So now that we know that enzymes are catalysts and they speed up chemical reactions to make those reactions go faster in this video, we're going to introduce some of the functions of enzymes. And so it turns out that enzymes actually have a wide variety of functions and living cells, and so we're not going to talk about all of the different functions that enzymes can have. But some of those functions include the following three functions that we're showing you down below, and the first is going to be building proteins. And so enzymes are involved with building proteins and making sure that proteins are built at a fast rate. And so you can see here that the enzyme is this little choo choo looking train here. And this choo choo looking train here is an enzyme that's called a Riva zone, which is specifically going to be used to build proteins using messenger RNA. And we'll be able to talk about this process of building proteins later in our our course. But for now, what you can see here is that enzymes are involved with building proteins, and you can see this here represents the enzyme and it's building this protein that you see here Now, enzymes are also really, really important for copying D n A. And so you here, you can see in this image that, uh, the DNA is being copied or duplicated so that there are two copies of the DNA, and this is something that enzymes are involved with and help to make sure that this process occurs at a fast enough rate. And then last but not least, enzymes are also involved with the digestion of food. And so when we eat our foods, enzymes are involved with breaking down the foods that are in our stomachs, and so you could see it here. This represents a picture of our stomachs, and the food that is in our stomachs are going to be broken down using enzymes and enzyme. Speed up the reactions that break down the foods that we digest. And so this year concludes our brief introduction to some of the functions that enzymes have. But the idea is that they are going to speed up chemical reactions and are involved with a wide variety of functions in living cells. And so I'll be able to see you guys in our next video

in this video, we're going to talk about some environmental factors that affect enzyme activity. And so enzyme activity is defined as a measure of the amount of product that is produced by an enzyme and a certain amount of time. And so if an enzyme produces ah lot of product within a given amount of time, then the enzyme has ah lot of activity. But if the enzyme Onley produces a little bit of product within a given amount of time, then the enzyme only has a little bit of activity. Now. Many environmental factors can actually affect and enzymes activity, and so we're not going to talk about all of the factors that can affect an enzymes activity. But three of those factors we are going to talk about down below, and those include the temperature, um, as the first environmental factor. And so the temperature can either include high temperatures or low temperatures or just temperatures in between the two. Now, another thing that could potentially affect the enzymes activity is going to be the pH of the solution. Whether the pH is acidic, neutral or if the pH is basic now, last but not least, the third environmental factor that we're going to talk about that affects enzyme activity is going to be the concentration of reactant since, and so, depending on the concentration of reactions, the enzyme will have either high or low activity. Now. It's also important to recall from our previous lesson videos that several environmental factors, like high temperatures or even acidity, can cause a protein to de nature. And so in most cases, enzymes are going to be proteins. And so several environmental factors can also cause enzymes to de nature as well. And so recall that denatured proteins or denatured enzymes are going to lose their shape. And when they lose their shape, they lose their function and so denatured enzymes because they lose their shape, their therefore going to have decreased enzymatic activity. And so, basically, what we're saying here is that the temperature needs to be just right in order for an enzyme to have optimal activity. If the temperature is too high or even too low, then the tempt. The enzyme is not going to have optimal activity, and the same goes for the pH. The pH cannot be too low or too acidic or too high or too basic. Otherwise, that will affect the enzymes activity. And there needs to be a very specific pH in order for the enzyme toe work, optimally or at its best. And then same goes for the concentration of reactant. If the concentration of reacting this is too low, then Thean ends, I will not be able to produce a lot of products. And if the concentration of reactant is too high, then that could potentially over saturate the enzyme, and that could also lead to the ends. I'm not working properly. And so this here concludes our introduction to how environmental factors can affect enzyme activity. And we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward in our course. So I'll see you all in our next video.

So here we have an example problem that wants us to complete this sentence here, using one of these four potential answer options down below. And it says certain species of bacteria are able to perform metabolic reactions involving enzymes in hot springs, where the temperatures are really hot because of which one of these reasons now the reason that bacteria are able to perform metabolic reactions in hot springs is because the enzymes that are involved are actually going to have optimal temperatures that are really, really high. So their enzymes have high, optimal temperatures. And so these enzymes are going to work best in temperatures that are really, really high. And so the correct answer here to this example problem is going to be option seat now, looking at some of the other options, such as option Beat says high temperatures make catalysis unnecessary. But really, this is not true. Even in high temperatures, bacteria and other forms of life are going to require enzymes to catalyze their reactions. And so just because the temperatures are high does not mean that catalysis is going to be unnecessary. So this is simply not true, and Option D says that they're enzymes are completely insensitive to temperatures, but this is also not going to be true. Enzymes are always going to be sensitive to their environments, and so these enzymes that have high optimal temperatures. If we were to remove these bacteria from the hot springs and put them into a glacier cold environment, then those enzymes would not work the same. So it's not that they're enzymes are insensitive to temperature. It's just that their enzymes have high optimal temperatures. So Option D here is not gonna be correct. And then Option A says that they are able to maintain a lower internal temperature. But bacteria that are in hot springs are really going to have the same temperature as their outside environment. And so this is really not going to be the reason for why these enzymes air capable of working properly in hot springs. And so once again, the correct answer to this problem here is because they're enzymes, have high, optimal temperatures, and so that concludes this example, and I'll see you all in our next video