Enzyme experiment for BABS1201 (1 Viewer)

[missanonymous7]

so we have to 'design an experiment to test enzyme structure and function' for BABS1201, which i'm sure many people would have done before me. i did HSC biology so i already know how to do some basic 'enzyme tests' (eg effect of temperature / pH / substrate conc. on enzyme activity), which would test the 'function' bit.

but i'm a bit confused about the 'structure' bit. i mean, if i wanted to find out about the structure of enzymes, i'd look it up on the internet or in a textbook. i'm not sure how to actually 'test' it (or maybe i'm just not thinking along the right track)

how have other people approached this before? (i'm not looking for full experiments or anything, just ideas). or will repeating the tests i did in HSC bio be sufficient?

 

[sparkerasp]

so we have to 'design an experiment to test enzyme structure and function' for BABS1201, which i'm sure many people would have done before me. i did HSC biology so i already know how to do some basic 'enzyme tests' (eg effect of temperature / pH / substrate conc. on enzyme activity), which would test the 'function' bit.

It looks like you're being asked to do an experiment to confirm that enzymes are actually doing something on a particular substance. The 'structure' bit I think is asking you to identify where the site of activity in the enzyme is and what is happening/what is it doing to the substance you are putting it in with.

If in doubt, ask the supervisors/demonstrators or email/ask your lecturer, or even a past student (which, I presume, is who you're looking for on this forum).

or will repeating the tests i did in HSC bio be sufficient?

How boring. Opt for something a bit more interesting and "previously unknown" to you.

 

[Tim035]

Is this hypothetical or will you actually be doing the experiments?
If it's hypothetical you could do some research on protein crystalization and amplification techniques that are actually used to produce structural images of a protein on a molecular level. If you do have to do an experiment, for first year I couldn't imagine anything more difficult then confirming the 'structure' of the active site by proving it only reacts with one substrate and perhaps not as successfully with similar shaped molecular entities.
If you wanted to sound really smart you could do some research in to the enthalpic and entropic factors that affect how succesfully an enzyme binds to its substrate.

- Meant to be ilecturing 'drugs used in endocrine disorders' ... must fight the procrastination

 

[missanonymous7]

How boring. Opt for something a bit more interesting and "previously unknown" to you.

Well...either way, it's mixing stuff around in test tubes to see what happens. personally I don't find that particularly exciting, even if i did something different to the hsc. thanks for your post though.

Is this hypothetical or will you actually be doing the experiments?
If it's hypothetical you could do some research on protein crystalization and amplification techniques that are actually used to produce structural images of a protein on a molecular level. If you do have to do an experiment, for first year I couldn't imagine anything more difficult then confirming the 'structure' of the active site by proving it only reacts with one substrate and perhaps not as successfully with similar shaped molecular entities.
If you wanted to sound really smart you could do some research in to the enthalpic and entropic factors that affect how succesfully an enzyme binds to its substrate.

- Meant to be ilecturing 'drugs used in endocrine disorders' ... must fight the procrastination

wow. what year etc did you learn this stuff in?

yes, we do actually have to do the experiment, so we have pretty much decided to do a repeat of the experiment in hsc bio, with a few differences. however your suggestion about seeing whether it reacts with other 'similarly shaped molecular entities' sounds interesting, thanks.

 

[Tim035]

Enzyme kinetics based on structure and amino acid sequence I did a bit on in 2nd year molecular biology, but am only doing in detail now really in 3rd year molecular pharmacology (and apparently also in rationale drug design); and even now they assure me that these are just the fundamentals, lol.
If you ask your tutor / demonostrator they will probabley just tell you what you're meant to do, but I would say performing some kind of reaction where you show substrate specificity = active site specificty is all they are after. Just trying to think of an example.... Something with a nice color change or obvious indication that the reaction occured in one instance but not in the other; might have to get back to you on it.