What general effects would you expect the following changes to have on the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction for an enzyme that has its maximum activity at body temperature (about 37°C)?
c. Adding an organic solvent, such as methanol

Question

What general effects would you expect the following changes to have on the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction for an enzyme that has its maximum activity at body temperature (about 37°C)?

c. Adding an organic solvent, such as methanol

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello everyone. So this question is asking us what general effect or effects might adding a polar organic solvent like ethanol have on an enzymatic process occurring at optimal human body temperature around 37 °C. So essentially what's happening here is that we're focusing on a particular enzyme and we're studying the effect that the structure or rather the the surrounding environment has on the structure of the enzyme. Because recall that the vast majority of enzymes are proteins and proteins are very, very sensitive to their environment. This is because proteins are composed of long amino acid chains and those amino acid chains fold together to create the three dimensional structure of the protein. This 3d structure is achieved by having the amino acids of a given protein interact with each other through hydrogen bonds or other forces. And so because of this changes in their ph or the ph of the solution changes in temperature and even changes in the solvent could potentially disrupt the interactions that hold a three dimensional structure of a protein together. So if you disrupt those, then the protein can undergo what's called denaturation, which is when that three dimensional structure can no longer maintain itself. So now let's get back to the scenario, ethanol is an organic solvent. And because it's a polar organic solvent, it has the capacity to interact directly with components of the protein, including those amino acids that make up its overall structure. And so introducing that interaction, two components of the protein itself could disrupt the overall structure of the protein of the enzyme. And so because proteins in general are so sensitive to changes in their structure, then that change, that disruption could either reduce or completely stop the activity of the enzyme. So to put everything together, we can say that introducing a solvent like ethanol is likely going to decrease the speed of the enzymatic process because it might disrupt enzyme binding. It can either denature the protein denature the enzyme entirely or somehow affect the way that the substrate binds to the enzyme. But either way we can conclude the following, we can conclude that the introduction of a polar organic solvent will slow down enzymatic activity due to potential structural changes in enzymes and there you have it. So with that being said, thank you so much for watching. And I hope you found this helpful.

What general effects would you expect the following changes to have on the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction for an enzyme that has its maximum activity at body temperature (about 37°C)?
c. Adding an organic solvent, such as methanol

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Enzyme Activity

Effect of Temperature on Enzymes

Organic Solvents and Enzyme Function

What general effects would you expect the following changes to have on the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction for an enzyme that has its maximum activity at body temperature (about 37°C)?c. Adding an organic solvent, such as methanol

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Enzyme Activity

Effect of Temperature on Enzymes

Organic Solvents and Enzyme Function

What general effects would you expect the following changes to have on the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction for an enzyme that has its maximum activity at body temperature (about 37°C)?
c. Adding an organic solvent, such as methanol