What are factors affecting the enzymes …

Factors affecting enzyme activity

Enzyme activity can be affected by a variety of factors, such as temperature, pH, and concentration.

Enzymes work best within specific temperature and pH ranges, and sub-optimal conditions can cause an enzyme to lose its ability to bind to a substrate.

• Temperature: Raising temperature generally speeds up a reaction, and lowering temperature slows down a reaction. However, extreme high temperatures can cause an enzyme to lose its shape (denature) and stop working.

• pH: Each enzyme has an optimum pH range. Changing the pH outside of this range will slow enzyme activity. Extreme pH values can cause enzymes to denature.

• Enzyme concentration: Increasing enzyme concentration will speed up the reaction, as long as there is substrate available to bind to. Once all of the substrate is bound, the reaction will no longer speed up, since there will be nothing for additional enzymes to bind to.

• Substrate concentration: Increasing substrate concentration also increases the rate of reaction to a certain point. Once all of the enzymes have bound, any substrate increase will have no effect on the rate of reaction, as the available enzymes will be saturated and working at their maximum rate.