Question

Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance!

Enzyme Activity (ml) Effect of pH on (amylase) enzyme activity. For determination of optimum assay pH of the enzyme reaction, 0.05 M Na2HPO4-NaH2PO4 buffer was used. The reaction was carried out for 10 min at 50°C in a shaking water. The enzyme activity was measured and the results are presented on graph, Bars represent means standard deviations for three replicates. 1. What do the error bars in this graph represent? Was does this value measure? 2. What does the shape of this line tell you about the function of this enzyme at different pH values? 3. Based on these data, a body fluid in which amylase was very active would most likely have what pH value? 4. If the researchers who did this experiment had more time, how might they have expanded this experiment?

Answer 1

QUESTION 1

In this case, the error bars represents how variable is de measured data. These bars shows you the scale where the data is variable above or bellow the true value. For that reason is why you observe a line above and bellow each point. In this case, you did the experiment three times, so the error bars shows you the segment of variability of the results taking in consideration de standard deviation.

QUESTION 2

This graph tell us that the enzyme has a optimal pH. At low pH, the activity is too low but when we make the pH more basic, the enzyme starts to increase its activity. When the enzyme reach its maximum optimal pH, the activity will decrease in function of the increased pH.

QUESTION 3

As we can observe, the enzyme is very active at ph 6.5/6.6, this would be its optimal pH. When we increase the pH we lose this activity. So, the answer would be pH 6.5.

QUESTION 4

In this experiment, the only factor that they took in consideration was the pH. However, this is not the only factor that could affect the enzymatic activity. If they would had more time, they should have tested the effect of temperature on the enzymatic activity. As the enzyme has a optimal pH, it has a optimal temperature as well. It would be interesting to determine the effect of temperature just as they tested the effect of pH, increasing the temperature until reaching a optimal temperature.