Where the enzymes that break down fats and proteins where they made and where do they act?
Enzymes are most familiarly associated with digestion, as substances in the alimentary tract that are necessary for the breakdown of food into simpler stuffs that can be absorbed into the body proper. These are indeed important, but they are in a small minority among the vast population of the body’s enzymes. They also differ from the majority in acting outside rather than inside the cells that make them. All living cells are teeming with enzymes. The name comes from the Greek meaning ‘in leaven’ or yeast. They are proteins, synthesized in cells, which act as catalysts, causing all the body’s chemical processes to advance with the necessary rapidity and completeness. Enzymes are ubiquitous in body cells and fluids, and they are specific — each enzyme is responsible for catalyzing one particular chemical process. Their existence and their function came to be recognized during the nineteenth century; understanding advanced with burgeoning twentieth-century biochemistry; and molecular bio
