What is meant by the specificity of enzymes?
The fact that enzymes are “specific” means that each enzyme will work on ONLY ONE substrate/substance. (A substrate is the compound on which an enzyme works.) Some are very specific like “catalase” which will ONLY speed up the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide. Others sound less specific like “protease” which will break down any protein – actually this is because “protease” is a name given to any enzyme which will break down protein. Some enzymes are named after the “forward” reaction they catalyse, but they are equally good at catalysing the reverse reaction. For example the addition of H to pyruvate to make lactate is catalysed by “lactate dehydrogenase” because the reverse reaction is the removal of H from lactate (I suspect it could also be called “pyruvate hydrogenase” but the first person to discover it was looking at the lactate to pyruvate reaction.). However, don’t be confused by this … all enzymes ARE specific. (It’s just the names we use which can be confusing.) You can expla
