Page 38 - The Miraculous Machine that Works for an Entire Lifetime: Enzyme

Harun Yahya

specific enzymes are compatible only with specific substrates. This

compatibility also takes effect at an impressive speed—so great that an
enzyme sometimes binds to 300 substrates, in a specific sequence, in
just one second. It converts those substances into different molecules,
then breaks away. This process will continue uninterruptedly through-
out your life.
Within the cell, the numbers of enzymes and substrates are actual-
ly quite small. That being so, how are the enzymes and the substrates
matching them able to locate one another? If the cell's inside structure
were static, it might never be possible for enzymes and substrates to
bond together, despite their both being in the same environment. But

no such problem exists, since the contents of the cell is in a constant
state of motion. Various movements caused by heat occur at the mole-
cular level; and molecules inside the cell are moving constantly from
one place to another. The interconnected atoms that compose these
molecules vibrate in situ. Proteins, which are larger molecules, revolve
around their own axes some million times a second. This astonishing
motion leads to all molecules within the cell constantly colliding with
one another.
As a result of these collisions around 500,000 times a second, the
active site of an enzyme is subjected to a bombardment by the relevant
substrate molecules, despite their low numbers inside the cell. As a re-
sult of this bombardment, the substrate fits into the surface of the rele-

vant enzyme and these molecules immediately assume the form of an
enzyme-substrate molecule, now ready to enter into a reaction. 18
Enzymes bind to any substrate they meet—whether compatible
with them or not—by means of very weak hydrogen bonds. The struc-
ture of the hydrogen bonds give the enzyme and substrate their own
unique shape and property. In addition to the hydrogen bonds, how-
ever, when the enzyme encounters the correct substrate and the two
join together, new bonds form—including such chemical interactions as

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