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Chapter 6 Blog: An Introduction to Energy, Enzymes, and Metabolism (Kimberley)

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on October 20, 2010 at 11:31:26 am
 

In the first section of this page, you will write a daily summary of that day's class.  For example in  your chapter 2 blog, your first entry should be titled 9/3/10.  You should then write a one or two paragraph summary of that day's lecture, outlining the major points.  In the second section, you are required to add two items (link to a website, video, animation, student-created slide show, student-created PowerPoint presentation) and one journal article pertaining to a topic in this chapter.  A one-paragraph summary must accompany each item describing the main idea and how it applies to the lecture topic.  Please see the PBWorks help guide for assistance embedding video and other items directly in the page.  I will also produce a how-to video on using tables to wrap text around items and other useful tips.  Please see the syllabus for organization and grading details.

 

A.  Daily Blog

 

10/13/10- Wednesday's main topic:Energy

 

A cell without energy is a dead cell. There are two types of energy kinetic and potential. Kinetic energy is associated with movement. Potential energy is due to structure or location. One type of potential energy is chemical energy which is energy stored in bonds. Because of chemical energy, the more highly organized a molecule is, the more potential energy it has, therefore making it more unstable. One important thing to know for this chapter is the two laws of Thermodynamics

 1) Law of Conservation of Energy

     a. Energy can not be created or destroyed.

     b.can be tranformed from one type to another

2) The transfer or tranformation of energy from one form to another increases entropy

     a. entropy-degree of disorder in a system

Then we learned about the different formulas. Reading about the formulas I was a little lost but learning about them in class made things clearer. We learned about the two main types of reactions, endergonic and exergonic. Endergonic reactions can be thought of as uphill reactions because they need energy, therefore they are not spontaneous. You can tell a reaction is endergonic by looking at the free energy. If the free energy change is positive. Exergonic reactions are quite the opposite. They release energy, so they are known as downhill reactions, making them spontaneous. The total amount of free energy from a reaction has to be given to you. If it is negative it does not mean that their is negative free energy but instead is supposed to be read like that amount of kcal per mol are being released. If it is a positive number it means that that amount of kcal per mol is required for that reaction.

 

10/15/10- Friday's Main Topic: Enzymes

 

On Friday  we learned about enzymes. I felt that writing the pre-lab a week or two earlier had made me familiar with them so a lot of this was review not only from reading but from that writing. The activation energy is the energy required to start out an equation. In a graph it is the hump. It is also the most unstable state because it has the highest amount of kinetic energy. The energy used to overcome this bump is usually in the form of heat. Enzymes are catalysts that lower the activation energy. Enzymes include an activation site where the substrates or reactants bind.

     Enzyme activity is measured by measuring the amount of product is has created. Looking at a graph of enzyme productivity, at one point it stops rising and plateus, this is called Vmax. This is because there is a limit to how many enzymes are in the body and how fast they can work. When all of the enzymes are working as fast as they can the productivity can no longer increase. Another way to look at it is that there are no more active sites for the substrate to bind to. Another thing measured on graphs is the

Km which is the amount of substrate required to bind half the enzymes.

 

B.  Useful Materials

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