Effect Of Ph On Pepsin

In this experiment, the effect of pepsin was tested in different environments and pH, with the pepsin “digesting” the egg white. The result to occur was meant to be different levels of effervescence, which correlates with the relative activity of the pepsin. pH has a critical effect on different enzymes, and is clearly evident in this experiment. The relative activity of the pepsin was highest in hydrochloric acid, and lowest in detergent, with reasons of why this may occur. A possible explanation for why the pepsin activity was highest in the hydrochloric acid, due to the body secreting that in the stomach, creating a similar environment leading to the best results, with another example simply being that the pH resembled a pH similar to the

Pepsin assists in the breaking down of proteins into small peptides in the use of amino acids, and pepsin is released in the stomach. This explains that the environment must be acidic in order to function properly and with the detergent being in an alkaline state, it would be lucky if there was any activity which resulted from the detergent. This all assists in understanding the effect that pH has on enzyme activity, by showing various levels of pH in affecting the activity of pepsin. Limitations in this experiment may have been an access to materials which were at a quality state, due to it being very difficult to find pure 100 % pepsin and other Materials. Improvements could be made in this experiment by including more materials, to show different levels of pH, which can increase the understanding of why different levels of pH lead to different results in relative activity of pepsin. Perhaps the amount of materials could have been lessened, and altered to determine the amount of hydrochloric acid, water, lime, detergent and sodium bicarbonate could have been changed to either higher or lower

For example, for people who have digestive issues, taking betaine HCL assists in balancing your stomach pH and assisting in keeping your stomach in a pH which is optimal for your stomach in order for pepsin to function properly. This experiment shows the importance pH has on the activity of pepsin in digesting proteins in to smaller peptides. This experiment is fairly valid, due to having a control variable and having two materials of pH above seven pH, one material that is seven pH (water) and two materials that are below seven pH . This shows the experiment is valid, due to showing evidence and providing a range of pH levels, which assists in creating a valid scientific experiment. This experiment is reliable, due to a high amount of research being done on enzyme activity. Pepsin has been extensively studied and the experiment that was performed was reliable due to extensive research done before hand, to completely understand the variables involved, why they’re put in place to develop a successful experiment. A variation that could have been involved could have been an addition of more materials pH level, similar to hydrochloric acid such as Vinegar, Lemon juice