GCSE Biology Unit 2 (13)

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Biological Catalysts - Enzymes

  • Enzymes are catalysts produced by living things
  • Living things have 1000's of different reactions going on inside them all the time.
  • These reactions need to be carefully controlled - to get the right amounts of substances.
  • You can usually make a reaction happen more quickly be raising the temperature.
  • This would speed up the useful reactions but also the unwanted ones too.
  • There's also a limit to how far you can raise the temperature inside a living organism before its cells start to get damaged.
  • Living things therefore produce biological catalysts known as enzymes.
  • They reduce the need to high temperatures and we only have enzymes to speed up the useful chemical reactions in the body.
  • A catalyst is a substance which increases the speed of a reaction, without being changed or used up in the reaction.
  • Enzymes are all proteins, which is one reason why proteins are so important to living things.
  • All proteins are…

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