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Function of Enzymes as Biological Catalysts

What's so crucial about enzymes? Are they life-sustaining unit of the living organism? No, yet they can't be ignored from life's existence. As long as life is present on earth, the enzymes will retain their importance. Enzymes are basically proteins existing in chain-like structure in the form of amino acids. And in the body cells of organisms, enzymes play the role of biological catalysts to cater or progress a particular reaction taking place over there. This is the key area of enzymatic action in the survival process. Thus if enzymes are lost, life will gradually come to an end.

Rate of biochemical reactions

As biological catalysts the enzymes play the primary role in triggering the rate of a biochemical reaction taking place in a cell.

- The rate of reaction is normally in the accelerated direction. The rate is actually increased by a thousand times than it would have been otherwise without the catalysts.

- Many a time as required by the process, the rate of the reaction is also increased a million times.

- The speeding up process by these biological catalysts is done in case of both types of reactions. The biochemical reaction can be either in the forward direction or in the reverse direction. How do enzymes actually balance the two reactions?

- When a reaction is being forwarded the magnitude of the rate is increased. Let's take it as the rate constant. Similarly in the reverse reaction we will get another rate constant as the value for the magnitude of the reaction process.

- This rate constant thus deduced has to be tallied with the equilibrium constant, that means when the magnitude of the reaction without the enzymatic factor. The interesting conclusion therefore would be that the ratio of the two constants will be same. This happens because the biological catalysts increase the rate of reaction but has nothing to do with the equilibrium constant.

Control over energy level

There is a reverse relation between the activation energy and the rate of reaction being catalyzed by the enzymes. You might think that as the rate of reaction is being increased and the time taken is reduced, therefore the energy consumption is also high. But what takes place is exactly the reverse.

The enzymes trigger the rate of reaction by lowering the energy amount. The transition phase of the reaction can be easily reached to get the final stage very swiftly without loss of energy. And in a biochemical this is only possible through biological catalysts. There lays the real importance of enzymes.

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