If possible can anyone give me information on the active site, substrates, products, and the energy of activation as part of the answer?Responses greatly appreciated! Thankss! 10pts to best answer!
To make it simple unlike the dude above me...enzymes (biological catalysts) lower the activation energy, which speeds up the reaction. EVERY reaction needs a little boost of energy--the activation energy--and enzymes lower that.
Catalysts help shift the equilibrium of a reaction to one that is more favorable. They allow a naturally occurring reaction that may be extremely slow to progress faster or an unfavorable reaction to proceed forward. During the process catalysts are recycled, which means that at the catalyst is the same compound in the beginning and the end of the reaction, although during intermediate steps catalysts can change conformation. Catalysts shift the equilibrium of a reaction by lowering the activation energy of a reaction, which is the energy barrier which must be overcome in order for the reaction to proceed in a desired direction. This can be achieved in several ways such as providing favorable thermodynamic conditions for a reaction or creating intermediates which react more favorably to create the products. Inside the cell a lot of chemical reactions are either too slow to proceed naturally or are simply unfavorable. Catalysts help overcome those barriers. The substrate is the part of the reaction which gets transformed into the products after binding to the active site of the protein.
