HOW DO ENZYMES ASSIST IN CHEMICAL REACTIONS?
We are going to add an animation to this page in the next day or two. If you work through this page before we get it up, go ahead and complete the form, but please come back again later to view the animation * Think about a reaction such as the one shown above. What must happen before the monomers can join together? They can’t join without breaking off an -OH and an -H. Breaking bonds requires energy. How could you provide enough energy to get two glucose molecules to combine and form maltose, a disaccharide? One way would be by heating them in a liquid such as water. HEAT IS MOLECULAR MOTION. If you heat the solution of glucose, the molecules will crash into each other harder and harder, and more and more frequently. Occasionally two molecules will crash in such a way as to break off the -OH and -H. How do the molecules have to be aligned in order to do this? The groups to be broken off must crash into each other. The problem with heating is that the motion it gives to the molecules i
