So long, farewell….









E– Enzymes are very specific. Some enzymes only catalyze one specific reaction, while others only act on a particular functional group, chemical bond or optical isomer.

N Not all enzymes are proteins. Shocking, I know! Some RNA molecules actually act as enzymes and these are called ribozymes, and also, some antibodies have catalytic properties, and these are called abzymes.

Z(I couldn’t think of anything with Z so an exclamation from Shaggy in Scooby Doo will have to suffice lol) Did you know that all metabolic reactions in the cell are catalyzed by enzymes? The reactions are too slow to occur on their own, so we would all be dead if there weren’t enzymes in our body!

Y-Yeast enzymes are used in fermentation. These enzymes break down disaccharides to simple sugars, and in the process, alcohol and carbon dioxide is produced. This fermentation process is what allows us to get wine from fruit juices and beer from wort. So for all of you wine and beer lovers out there know that you get your favourite drinks via the actions of enzymes.

M-Meeting of enzymes and substrates occur at a point on the enzyme called the active site. The enzyme gets near the substrate and is all like   (lol) and since enzymes are proteins, the amino acid residues of the active site binds with the substrate through interactions like hydrophobic interactions, electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding and Van der Waals interactions.

E– Every woman takes a pregnancy test at least once in her life, I assume. But did you know that pregnancy tests work via the action of enzymes as well? The hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) is produced after a woman becomes pregnant. The HCG in her urine, reacts with an antibody-enzyme complex, forming an HCG-antibody enzyme complex confirming her pregnancy.

And just for a little enzyme joke : 


Worthington Biochemical Corporation. “Introduction to Enzymes.” Specificity of Enzymes. (accessed March 2, 2014).

“ELISA for Home Pregnancy Test.” (accessed March 2, 2014). “Yeast.” HowStuffWorks. (accessed March 3, 2014).


Hey guys, Aaliyah here and this week we’re talking about enzymes. 🙂 Now, I particularly love this topic so I hope you guys enjoy learning new things about enzymes with me.

Spongebob - ENZYMES

Most enzymes are proteins . Enzymes are biological catalysts that speed up the rate of a chemical reaction but remain unchanged during the reaction.

The way enzymes work is by lowering the activation energy of a reaction so the reaction occurs more easily and faster. The activation energy is simply the minimum energy required for a reaction to occur, either substances reacting together, or a substance being broken down. The graph below shows how this happens.

To help understand, you can imagine that a car going over a hill is the reaction you want to occur. The uncatalyzed reaction requires a lot of energy from the car, since the hill is high. You’re going to be mashing X like crazy! The enzyme steps in and cuts down the hill for you, making it a shorter hill to go over. This would be the enzyme lowering the activation energy, and the car can go over the hill while using less energy and power. The car both starts and ends at the same places in both “reactions”, but the energy required to get the car over the tall hill is much more than the energy required going over the short hill.

Now, one thing that I surely didn’t know before was that enzymes are classified into six groups. It’s preferred that you learn them in a specific order so I’ve come up with this to help me remember and I hope it helps you too-using the first letters of these words Only The Happy Life Is Lovely. Corny, I know lol…but it helps! These stand for Oxidoreductases, Transferases, Hydrolases, Lyases , Isomerases and Ligases, all of which catalyze different types of reactions.

There are two theories as to how enzymes work- The Lock and Key Theory and The Induced Fit Theory.

In the lock and key theory, the shape of the active site is complementary to the shape of the substrate.  The lock is analogous to the enzyme and the key is analogous to the substrate. The correct key would fit into the key hole of the lock, just like the correct substrate would fit into the correct active site of the enzyme, as shown in the illustration below.

In the Induced Fit Theory the substrate can slightly alter the shape of the active site in the enzyme so that it can fit, as shown in the illustration below.

Now there are many more things I can say about enzymes, but I don’t want to keep rambling for too long, so the last thing I’ll leave you with is a basic summary on how enzymes work in a reaction.

Enzyme + Substrate ==> enzyme-substrate complex ==> Enzyme + Products

And there you have it! Hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I hope you learnt at LEAST one thing. Be sure to check out the following post for some interesting facts about enzymes and look out for a cool word cloud on all things enzymes! 🙂 Now, if only there was an enzyme to help us study faster, like Studyase…sighhh!

Until next time!    


Nelson, David L., and Michael M. Cox. 2008. Lenhinger Principles of Biochemistry. 5th edition. New York: W.H Freeman and Company.

“Mechanism of Enzyme Action.” Enzymes. (accessed March 2, 2014).