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AH Biology Investigation Help Please!

the deadline for procedures and apparatus needed is for tomorrow! i cannot find much help with what i want to do which is: the effect of common drugs on human digestive enzymes.

So far i want to use several types of digestive enzymes and measure the activity in how they digest their substrate as a control. The reoccuring problem i have is how do i know when the end point is reached? similarly with the presence of drugs i do not know if the end point is reached! and if that problem is resolved it seems a bit basic just to be measuring the activity of enzymes as a control, measure again with presence of a drug, and maybe repeat with another different type of drug but all thats happening is the enzyme digesting its specific substrate. Seeing other aims and procedures of different investigations are far more complicated and detailed!

Much appreciate your help!

Reply 1

Revd. Mike

Original post by Captain127

The 'end-point' would be when the reaction progresses no further. So when the substrate concentration no longer decreases (or is depleted) or the product concentration no longer increases.

It's not generally necessary to make the reaction go to completion when you're doing enzyme assays however. Just do it over a set period of time with regular time points and make a graph.