What are Enzymes?
- Enzymes are proteins produced by cells
- Enzymes are biological catalysts
- Biological = they are produced and function inside living cells
- Catalyst = they speed up the rate of chemical reactions without being changed or used up
- Enzymes are involved with all the metabolic reactions that occur inside living cells, where they maintain reaction rates at a suitable level
- E.g. if we did not produce digestive enzymes it would take around 2-3 weeks to digest one meal; with enzymes it takes around 4 hours
- Examples of enzyme-controlled reactions include:
- Building larger molecules from small molecules
- Breaking large molecules into smaller molecules