Lab 8 Enzyme Kinetics
Lab 8 Enzyme Kinetics
Lab 8 Enzyme Kinetics
Objectives :
1. Introduction
Amylases are a family of enzymes that degrade starch (polymers of glucose) into smaller
disaccharides (maltose). A molecule of water is also split during this reaction and the OH-
and H+ ions bind to the exposed ends of the broken starch polymer. This type of reaction
is called hydrolysis (water splitting).Hydrolysis is a common mechanism used by enzymes
to break chemical bonds.
The hydrolysis of starch can be measured through the use of an enzyme test or assay.
An enzyme assay will test for the simple presence of enzyme activity but can also be used
to measure the reaction rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. The assay can measure
either the appearance of one of the products or the disappearance of one of the substrates
over time.
To measure your amylase activity, you will monitor the disappearance of amylases
substrate, starch. Starch reacts with iodine (which is yellow) to form a blue compound
(Amax 620 nm). This reaction is the basis of a colorimetric assay for amylase activity.
Broth culture supernatant (which contains the secreted amylase) will be incubated with
starch. After the incubation period, a portion (an aliquot) of this mixture is combined with
acidic iodine. The acid stops the enzymatic reaction and the iodine reacts with the starch
to produce the blue color. Any starch that has not yet been hydrolyzed by the amylase
will turn blue, with the intensity of the blue color being proportional to the amount of starch
remaining. The intensity of the blue color can be quantified spectrophotometrically by
measuring its absorbance at 620 nm. The greater the change in absorbance between a
CHE506 Lab 8 Lab Manual
Edited Feb 2017
sample containing the initial amount of starch (without enzyme) and the hydrolyzed
mixture containing the enzyme, the greater the amount of starch degraded by the enzyme,
therefore the greater the activity of the enzyme being measured.
Enzyme activity (reaction rates) is dependent upon the environmental conditions either in
nature or in the laboratory (e.g. temperature, pH, etc.). This is because these conditions
can alter the amino acid side chains in a protein, affecting protein structure and folding
and sometimes the enzyme's active site. The effects of some of those conditions will be
explored in this exercise. Just as in any chemical reaction, the concentration of reactants
(substrates) will affect enzymatic reaction rates. In regards to substrate concentration,
enzyme kinetics follows the Michaelis-Menton Model:
3. Experimental Procedures
a. After 10 minutes (the time of hydrolysis reaction), stop the reaction by adding 4 ml of
DNS reagent.
b. Boil for 10 minutes and then left to cool to room temperature.
c. Measure the absorbance of the samples at =540 nm.
d. Compare the absorbance value with glucose standard curve prepared to obtain the
glucose concentration.
e. Calculate the enzyme activity.
Note: Enzyme activity is the amount of glucose formed in reaction mixture per unit time.
1 Abstract/Summary (5M)
2 Introduction (5M)
3 Aims/Objective (5M)
4 Theory (10M)
5 Apparatus (5M)
6 Methodology/Procedure (10M)
7 Results (10M)
8 Calculations (10M)
9 Discussion (20M)
10 Conclusion (10M)
11 Recommendation (5M)
12 Reference/Appendix (5M)