Question

Under what conditions are enzymes denatured? Is denaturation reversible? How could you test this?

Answer 1

There are several conditions and chemicals that can denature an enzyme such as change in temperature and pH or addition of chemicals such as treatment by Urea or B mercaptoethanol which is capable of cleaving disulphide bond between thiol groups of cysteine.

No denaturation is not reversible as the shape of the enzyme is changed soo much by denaturation that it is not able to acquire it back anymore and since the shape ahs changed, its activity would be lost as well.

You can setup an experiment to test this by taking a known enzyme with easily detectable activity by treating the experimental enzyme withhigh temperatures and then bring the temperature down to normal and test its activity and compare it with an enzyne that is used without any denaturation step.

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