Question #506b9
1 Answer
Enzymes are made from proteins (which are in turn made from amino acids) and are biological catalysts.
Explanation:
Well enzymes are described as biological catalysts. That means they provide an alternative, lower energy, reaction pathway which enables many processes to occur in nature that otherwise would not be able to happen.
Enzymes are made from proteins and have complex structures which result from particular folding within protein molecules that give enzymes the unique characteristics that they have.
As enzymes are made of proteins, they have very strict conditions in which they will operate successfully - this is why it is very important to maintain constant conditions in living organisms (for example extreme heat denatures a protein and alters it's structure, thus reducing or even eliminating the enzymes functionality).
Interestingly, many modern areas of chemical research centre around computationally modelling protein folding and design. The ability to design and / or manipulate enzymes is of great interest to scientists. Such areas of interest include manipulating protein folding in bacteria based enzymes which could result in the production of substances beneficial to society - biofuels, for example.
