The Use Of Alcohol Dehydrogenase ( Adh )

Enzymes are like tools; you always get back what you started with after the reaction is complete. They speed up reactions by providing an alternative reaction pathway that requires lower activation energy. They are substrate specific! In order for an enzyme to work an enzyme and substrate must fit together like a lock and key. It has a region on its surface called the active site where the substrate binds. Once the substrate and enzyme have bounded, they form an enzyme-substrate complex. The enzyme-substrate complex reacts to form a product(s) and the resulting enzyme.
For thousands of years, alcoholic beverages have been produced by the fermentation of yeasts, sugars and starches to form an alcohol called ethyl alcohol or ethanol. It is the intoxicating agent found in beer, wine and liquor. After you drink an alcoholic beverage it absorbs into your bloodstream. Once alcohol enters your bloodstream it remains there until the body processes it. The liver is the main place where this occurs. An enzyme in your liver cells known as alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) breaks down alcohol through a type of reaction called a dehydrogenation reaction (Alcohol Metabolism). In this experiment, ADH uses Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+) as a cofactor to break down alcohol into acetaldehyde, NADH and a single proton. ADH, like all enzymes, is sensitive to its surrounding. It has an optimum pH and temperature at which it is the most efficient. To determine this optimum pH and temperature we performed photometric assay. Photometry classifies light based on wavelength. Light with a wavelength of below 400nm can be classified as ultraviolet. Assay is analysis to determine composition. Photometric assay is an analysis tool that uses a spectrophotom...

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...etermine enzyme specificity and factors controlling rate. We looked at how choosing the right substrate to begin with influences reaction rate. This phenomena can be explained by the right key fitting a lock or finding the perfect piece to the puzzle. The substrate that was chosen to conduct the rest of the experiment was ethanol, a substrate with a two carbon chain. The binding of ADH with ethanol created an enzyme-substrate complex that formed the product acetaldehyde, NADH and a proton. From the experiment, I was able to determine the optimum temperature to be 37C and the optimum pH to be 8.5. In conclusion, I learned that ADH is an enzyme in the body that helps break down ethanol. I also learned that there are specific conditions that the enzyme must be in to perform efficiently. It was determined that temperature and pH play an important role in enzyme activity.