Design Experiment: Enzyme Inhibitors.
Research question: What is the effect of adding lead nitrate solution on the activity of amylase enzyme?
Aim: To test the effect of adding nitrate solution on the activity of amylase.
Background Information:
Inhibitors are molecules which repress or prevent another molecule from engaging in a reaction. They are substances that attach themselves onto an enzyme and reduce or prevent the enzyme’s ability to catalyse reactions. Competitive Inhibitors are inhibitors that occupy the active site of an enzyme or the binding Site of a receptor and prevent the normal substrate or ligand from binding. An active site is a region on the surface of an enzyme to which substrates bind and which catalyzes a chemical …show more content…

If no starch is present then it remains as light brown. In the above experiment boiling tubes E and F contain starch. This was because they contained greater mass of lead nitrate and therefore has reduced the ability of the enzyme (amylase) to hydrolyse starch into maltose. The blue-black color remained indicating that the solution contained greater amounts of starch. In the boiling tube A the color was the lightest because lead nitrate was not present. Thus the starch could bind to the active site of the amylase and could be broken down into maltose easily. Therefore in the test tube A starch was broken down in the solution and hence none was left. In boiling tubes B and C the solution was relatively darker because the mass of lead nitrate was greater but not great enough to stop the reaction completely. Therefore the greater the mass of lead nitrate, the darker the solution will form since a darker color indicated the presence of starch. The starch remained because of the effect of the inhibitor which reduced the capacity of the enzyme to break down starch into maltose.
Data Presentation. Thus the graph shows that a darker color perseveres if a greater mass of lead nitrate is added. This is because the bigger outcome of the inhibitor prevents the hydrolysis of the starch and so many molecules of starch still remain in the solution without being broken down by amylase. Therefore the color intensity of the