A group of students decided to carry out an Investigation to find out how enzyme activity is affected by temperature changes. They put samples of salivary amylase and
starch into two test tubes. Salivary amylase is an enzyme that breaks down starch
into maltose. Its optimum temperature for activity is around 37°C.
A. What do you think happened to the rate of reaction of the enzyme when the students had the
1st test tube at 37 degrees?
B. What do you think happened to the rate of reaction of the enzyme when the students had the
2nd test tube at 0 degrees? At 60 degrees
I

See the answer below

Explanation:

Enzymes are biological catalysts and are quite temperature specific. They operate optimally within a certain range of temperature. At lower temperatures, their activities decrease and they become inactive at extremely low temperatures. At higher temperatures, their activities are initially promoted but as temperatures get higher, their activities become zero due to the fact that they become denatured.

A. The optimum temperature for amylase activity is 37, hence, when the student had the first test tube at this temperature, the rate of reaction of the enzyme is optimal. The maximum amount of starch would be broken down into maltose.

B. At 0 degrees, the enzyme would become inactive and the rate of reaction becomes minimal or even zero due to the inactivity of the enzyme. At 60 degrees, the rate of reaction also becomes zero because the enzyme would have been denatured by the high temperature.

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