Enzyme Lab Report

Introduction

Enzymes are classified as being a class of proteins. In other words, the basic structures of enzymes are formed by chains of amino acids. Enzymes, as all other kind of structures, can breakdown in some circumstances. The pH, for instance, is one of the factors that affect the enzymes. Changes in pH not only affect the shape of an enzyme, but it also charges properties of substrate, which will eventually block the bind of the substrate with the active site and prevent it to undergo catalysis (Boumis 2012). On April, 6th 2016, ¬ the students of Biology 135 conducted an experiment on “[Laboratory 6] Cell Biology – Enzyme Activity,” to understand how enzyme works when various environmental factors affect the rate of its reactions.

As general information for this lab, students were required to work in pairs and they were assigned four different pH. However, the information from each group was recorded in an Excel spreadsheet, and students were asked to plot their values in Excel to have a better access to graphs (Figdore et al. 2015). The procedure emphasized that researchers worked with one test of starch at the time. The starch used in this experiment was the different values of pH. Three or more spot plates were filled with one drop of iodine (each per test). Then, 5 ml of the starch solution was added to its appropriated test tube; for example, pH 3 to test tube 1, pH 5 to test tube 2, etc. Three drops of the starch solution was then added to the first spot of the plate, and this was called time zero. The solution color at the time zero spot was always blue-black. After this step, 1 ml of amylase solution was added to the test tube (one test tube per time), and the timer was immediately started. After 15 seconds, three drops of the starch/amylase mixture was added to the next spot in the plate, and this procedure was kept until the reaction was completed. The final color, which showed that the reaction was completed, was supposed to be yellowish-red, just like the iodine color itself. If after adding the starch/amylase