Page 191 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

Enzymes bring down the “wall” I guess it’s like...
an enzyme lowers
So what advantage the wall to make the
do you suppose
there is... climb easier.

For an enzyme to Going
participate in this down!
kind of chemical
Enzyme
reaction? to the
rescue!

On a basic level, that’s exactly No problemo! That enzyme
right! For example, let’s imagine is such a

you’re a substrate, Kumi. sweetheart!

To reach your destination Reaction
and transform into a reaction progress
product, you need to leap over
There are also
an intimidating six-foot wall, chemical reactions
But that’s just too high! in which the enzyme
changes the mechanism
Then along comes Mr. Enzyme,
who smashes the wall down of the reaction.
to size. Now the six-foot
wall is a two-foot wall, and But for the purpose
you hop over without a care of this discussion...
in the world. Get it?

Activation No enzyme
barrier

Amount of energy High
Low

With
enzyme

Reaction Progress I get the
job done!
This graph summarizes
things nicely. As you ...we will assume
can see, if the enzyme that the presence of the

is present, the chemical enzyme only lowers
reaction occurs more the activation energy
of the chemical reaction.
easily, because the
activation energy is

lowered.