Enzyme

Enzymes are molecules that accelerate, or catalyze, chemical reactions. In these reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates and the enzyme converts these into different molecules, called products. Almost all metabolic processes in the cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates fast enough to sustain life. The set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell. The study of enzymes is called enzymology. Enzymes are known to catalyze about 5,400 biochemical reactions. Most enzymes are proteins, although a few are catalytic RNA molecules, such as the ribosome. All enzymes get their extraordinary specificity from their unique three-dimensional structure. Like all catalysts, enzymes increase the rate of a reaction by lowering its activation energy. Some enzymes can make their conversion of substrate to product occur many millions of times faster. For example, the reaction catalyzed by orotidine 5′-phosphate decarboxylase will consume half of its substrate in 78 million years if no enzyme is present. When decarboxylase is added, the same process takes just 25 milliseconds. Chemically, enzymes are like any catalyst and are not consumed in chemical reactions, nor do they alter the equilibrium of a reaction. Enzymes differ from most other catalysts by being much more specific. Enzyme activity can be affected by other molecules. Inhibitors are molecules that decrease enzyme activity, and activators are molecules that increase activity. Drugs and poisons are often enzyme inhibitors. Enzymes are also affected by features of their environment, such as temperature, pressure, and pH. Some enzymes are used commercially, for example, in the synthesis of antibiotics. Some household products use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions: enzymes in biological washing powders break down protein or fat stains on clothes, and enzymes in meat tenderizer break down proteins into smaller molecules, making the meat easier to chew.