Maltase is an enzyme that hydrolyzes maltose to two glucose mo...

Question

Maltase is an enzyme that hydrolyzes maltose to two glucose molecules.

b. Draw an energy diagram for the reaction with and without maltase.

Accepted Answer

All right. Hello everyone. So this question says that the hydrolysis of isomaltase result in the formation of two glucose molecules with isomaltase as the enzyme construct an energy diagram illustrating the hydrolysis reaction progression with and without the presence of isomaltase. So with and without the presence of the enzyme. So a few things to keep in mind, not only for enzyme in general, but for the specific reaction enzymes, if you recall are very, very specific to not only their substrate but the reaction type now substrate in this context refers to the starting material that the enzyme is acting on. So in this particular case, this reaction is a hydrolysis reaction because we're breaking down a dy sac ride which is isomaltase into two monosaccharide. In this case, two molecules of glucose. So because this is the hydrolysis reaction of a sugar, these reactions if you recall are generally going to be aaronic. So what that means is that energy is released when going from reactant to product. This means that the products, in other words are two glucose molecules have less energy inherent to them compared to the starting materials. So what's the role of an enzyme in all of this because we understand at this point that enzymes are going to make reactions proceed faster. But how do they do that? Well, the importance of an enzyme is that they reduce the activation energy or euba of a reaction. Think of the activation energy as the energy barrier. It is the amount of energy that needs to be present for the reaction to actually proceed. If you're reducing the activation energy, you reduce the barrier, making that reaction more likely to occur. Now, it's important to recognize that enzymes are not going to affect the free energy value or the delta G value of a reaction that's inherent to the reaction and not something that enzymes modify. Remember, enzymes are only going to affect that activation energy that energy barrier. So with that being said, let's go ahead and start with our graph writer energy diagram. So for that, I'm going to start with my L shaped curve or L shaped graph which is a little lopsided. So let me just fix that. All right. So here we have the X and the Y axis showing only the first quadrant. So the X axis should be time and our y axis should be energy. So reactants, if you recall belong on the left side and products belong on the right. So here as mentioned before, this reaction is going to be ex organic, which means that the starting materials should be higher up on the graph compared to the products. So just to go ahead and mark where we're going to be right, I'm going to add a small line here for my starting materials on the very left side. And then on the right side of the graph, I go ahead and add another line to mark where I want my products to be shelved. It's important to recognize that the line representing the reactants is higher up on the graph compared to the line representing the products because we want to show this difference in energy. All right. So from here, we can go ahead and draw out our curve. Now, recall it before the energy of the reaction as a whole actually goes down to form the products. It's going to reach a maximum at the transition state. In other words, the in between between starting material and product. So from the line marking the starting materials, I would draw a peak and then have that go down to reach the line for their products. So here, from here, I can go ahead and write down my starting materials on the very left side. So that's isom maltose and recall that this is a hydrolysis reaction which means that water is also going to be a starting material. As for the products, we have two equivalents of glucose. All right. So now how do you go ahead and showcase the activation energy in this graph? Well, first, it's important to go ahead and take note of the energy level of the reactants. The activation energy is the difference between the starting energy of the reactants and the maximum point of the curve. So after, after using a dashed line here to showcase the energy level of the reactants in between the dash line and the highest point of the curve, I'm drawing an arrow and that arrow represents the activation energy. So this right here just to clarify is the activation energy without I saw Maltese. So now to showcase the importance of having an enzyme in this reaction, I'm going to go ahead and draw a second curve overlapping the first one that I just drew. Now, the energy levels of reactants and products are going to remain the same. But the difference in the second curve is that that highest point that maximum is going to be lower than the first one. So in the same region, I would draw out the second curve. But this time that maximum should be lower than the first, just draw that out one more time just to see if that'll look better. So now from the energy level of the reactants to the second maximum here, that's going to represent the activation energy with the enzyme with isomaltase and there you have it. So now by using these two overlapping curves, we can take note of the difference in the activation energy with or without the enzyme. And so with that being said, if you watch this video all the way through. Thank you so very much. And I hope you found this helpful.

Maltase is an enzyme that hydrolyzes maltose to two glucose molecules.
b. Draw an energy diagram for the reaction with and without maltase.

Key Concepts

Enzymes and Catalysis

Activation Energy

Energy Diagrams

Watch next