Caroline Macrae Biology 161 06 Enzymes are used to help lower activation energy which is the energy required for the reaction to start which in turn helps to speed up reactions Substrates bind to an enzymes active site and after going through a chemical process the substrate emerges as a new product Engle et al 3 1 Enzymes can be used many times not just once Engle et al 3 1 One kind of enzyme is a peroxidase which helps speed up the breaking down of hydrogen peroxide Engle et al 3 3 Peroxidase enzymes aid in removing an oxygen off of hydrogen peroxide and in removing two hydrogens from guaiacol in this particular experiment Engle et al 33 Different factors affected enzyme activity When enzyme activity is double halved and boiled Also when the pH was brought down to three or brought up to a pH of eleven and structural analogs The enzyme used in this experiment was a peroxidase in the form of turnip extract Enlgle et al 3 5 Guaiacol was used as the organic molecule from which two hydrogen atoms were removed in order to form one molecule of water Engle et al 3 3 In this study the question being addressed in the experiment is if the enzyme activities are changed under different conditions boiled halved pH increased decreased doubled structural analog what were the effects Answering this question helped determine what states enzyme activity does well in and vice versa Baseline was used to compare to other enzyme activity under different conditions Engle et al 3 6 Three tubes were prepared for each test with amounts applicable to each test Enzyme activity increases when doubled in concentration and decreases when the concentration is halved If this is the hypothesis is true then when concentration is increased then a higher absorbance value should be obtained and if the concentration is decreased then a lower absorbance value should be obtained Enzyme activity decreases when the enzyme has been boiled because it denatures the protein by destroying its bonds If this hypothesis is true then when the enzyme is boiled then the enzyme activity in the test tube should be significantly lower than baseline Enzyme activity will be reduced when changes in pH occur If this hypothesis is true then the enzyme activity in the test tube should be lower than the baseline A structural analog will slow down enzyme activity If this is true then the reaction rate will decrease but not cease