ENZYME chat topic

An enzyme is a protein that catalyzes, or speeds up, a chemical reaction. The word comes from the Greek ένζυμο, énsymo, which comes from én ("at" or "in") and simo ("leaven" or "yeast"). Certain RNAs also have catalytic activity, but to differentiate them from protein enzymes, they are referred to as RNA enzymes or ribozymes.

Enzymes are essential to sustain life because most chemical reactions in biological cells would occur too slowly, or would lead to different products without enzymes. A malfunction (mutation, overproduction, underproduction or deletion) of a single critical enzyme can lead to a severe disease. For example, the most common type of phenylketonuria is caused by a single amino acid mutation in the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase, which catalyzes the first step in the degradation of phenylalanine. The resulting build-up of phenylalanine and related products can lead to mental retardation if the disease is untreated.

Like all catalysts, enzymes work by providing an alternate pathway of lower activation energy of a reaction, thus allowing the reaction to proceed much faster. Enzymes may speed up reactions by a factor of many millions. An enzyme, like any catalyst, remains unaltered by the completed reaction and can therefore continue to function. Because enzymes do not affect the relative energy between the products and reagents, they do not affect equilibrium of a reaction. However, the advantage of enzymes compared to most other catalysts is their sterio-, regio- and chemoselectivity and specificity.

Enzyme activity can be affected by other molecules. Inhibitors are naturally occurring or synthetic molecules that decrease or abolish enzyme activity; activators are molecules that increase activity. Some irreversible inhibitors bind enzymes very tightly, effectively inactivating them. Many drugs and poisons act by inhibiting enzymes. Aspirin inhibits the COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes that produce the inflammation messenger prostaglandin, thus suppressing pain and inflammation. The poison cyanide inhibits cytochrome c oxidase, which effectively blocks cellular respiration.

While all enzymes have a biological role, some enzymes are used commercially for other purposes. Many household cleaners use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions ( e.g., breaking down protein or starch stains in clothes).

More than 5,000 enzymes are known. Typically the suffix -ase is added to the name of the substrate (e.g., lactase is the enzyme that catalyzes the cleavage of lactose) or the type of reaction (e.g., DNA polymerase catalyzes the formation of DNA polymers). However, this is not always the case, especially when enzymes modify multiple substrates. For this reason Enzyme Commission or EC numbers are used to classify enzymes based on the reactions they catalyze. Even this is not a perfect solution, as enzymes from different species or even very similar enzymes in the same species may have identical EC numbers.

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