The Experiment Of The Human Rationale For Trypsin

943 Words2 Pages

When our group began our experiment we started with the hypothesis: “If the optimal pH for trypsin is 8, then reactions occurring in environments above or below will result in lower proteolytic activity and thereby slow reaction rates.” After testing several pH’s 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11 it is impossible to fully accept or reject our hypothesis that we set especially using the rationale about trypsin in the small intestines. By trypsin being located in the small intestines where the pH is 8 one would believe that any other pH whether above 8 or below 8 would cause for trypsin to have a slower proteolytic activity. The standard deviation showed that although there is a difference in the activity of the trypsin depending on the pH the proteolytic activity did not slow down tremendously outside of a pH of 8. It is possible that because trypsin is naturally located in the small intestines is why the optimal pH is said to be 8. However, it is unclear if trypsin would work better in other parts of the body that have a pH other than 8. which would indicate that it is possible that just because trypsin is located in the small intestines that 8 is …show more content…

The first possible human error could be the fact that we pre-incubated the trypsin and in the body there is no pre-incubation. Secondly when we began the experiment the trypsin was on ice which indicates that the trypsin is initially starting off at a cooler temperature than what it would be at if it was working inside the body. Finally, the temperature in which we used for the water bath. The temperature is one of that main issues because the trypsin went from a cool environment to a room temperature and then to a warm environment so the temperature was never stable and this alone could have a tremendous effect on the proteolytic activity of trypsin. Better control of the temperature could have resulted in more conclusive

Open Document