Question: How easy is it to use the enzymes?

Karina de Almeida LIns answered on 6 Oct 2022:

Hi,

Thank you for your question. There is a lot of different ways you could use enzymes on science, so I’ll give you just one example based on an internship I did right after my graduation.

Enzymes are proteins by nature, so to start to work with them, you need to extract and purify them from their natural environment. For example, if you want to use enzymes from the saliva (amylase – responsible for breaking down complex carbohydrates from the food we eat into sugars that can be easily absorbed), you can take a bit of saliva and mix with reagents that will separate them from the other things present on the saliva (you can have food from previous meals or even harmless bacteria present that are naturally present in our mouth).

After obtaining a pure enzyme extract, you can study it in several ways. Using the same example of the amylase: every enzyme has an optimal temperature and pH to execute its functions on their best potential. So you could mix your enzymes with carbohydrates in different temperatures and pH to figure it out what is the optimal condition. For this, you should be able to measure the amount of carbohydrates present in your reactional mixture before and after a certain period of time.

So in a general way, it’s not so difficult to work with enzymes – you just need to be able to perform some basic laboratory procedures (reactions, measurements, etc).

I hope it helps! Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any other questions.