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Related Concept Videos

Enzymes02:34

Enzymes

Inside living organisms, enzymes act as catalysts for many biochemical reactions involved in cellular metabolism. The role of enzymes is to reduce the activation energies of biochemical reactions by forming complexes with its substrates. The lowering of activation energies favor an increase in the rates of biochemical reactions.
Enzyme deficiencies can often translate into life-threatening diseases. For example, a genetic abnormality resulting in the deficiency of the enzyme G6PD...
Enzymes and Activation Energy01:13

Enzymes and Activation Energy

The activation energy (or free energy of activation), abbreviated as Ea, is the small amount of energy input necessary for all chemical reactions to occur. During chemical reactions, certain chemical bonds break, and new ones form. For example, when a glucose molecule breaks down, bonds between the molecule's carbon atoms break. Since these are energy-storing bonds, they release energy when broken. However, the molecule must be somewhat contorted to get into a state that allows the bonds to...
Enzymes and Activation Energy01:13

Enzymes and Activation Energy

The activation energy (or free energy of activation), abbreviated as Ea, is the small amount of energy input necessary for all chemical reactions to occur. During chemical reactions, certain chemical bonds break, and new ones form. For example, when a glucose molecule breaks down, bonds between the molecule's carbon atoms break. Since these are energy-storing bonds, they release energy when broken. However, the molecule must be somewhat contorted to get into a state that allows the bonds to...
Enzyme Kinetics01:19

Enzyme Kinetics

Enzymes speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy of the reactants. The speed at which the enzyme turns reactants into products is called the rate of reaction. Several factors impact the rate of reaction, including the number of available reactants. Enzyme kinetics is the study of how an enzyme changes the rate of a reaction.
Scientists typically study enzyme kinetics with a fixed amount of enzyme in the controlled environment of a test tube. When more reactant, or substrate, is...
Introduction to Enzymes01:22

Introduction to Enzymes

The use of enzymes by humans dates to 7000 BCE. Humans first used enzymes to ferment sugars and produce alcohol without knowing that this was an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Wilhelm Kuhne coined the term 'enzyme' in 1877 from the Greek words ‘en’ meaning ‘in’ or ‘within’ and ‘zyme’ meaning ‘yeast.’
Most enzymes are proteins that speed up biochemical reactions without being consumed. Enzymes contain one or more active sites that bind the substrates and convert them into products. Many enzymes also...
Introduction To Enzymes01:22

Introduction To Enzymes

The use of enzymes by humans dates to 7000 BCE. Humans first used enzymes to ferment sugars and produce alcohol without knowing that this was an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Wilhelm Kuhne coined the term 'enzyme' in 1877 from the Greek words ‘en’ meaning ‘in’ or ‘within’ and ‘zyme’ meaning ‘yeast.’
Most enzymes are proteins that speed up biochemical reactions without being consumed. Enzymes contain one or more active sites that bind the substrates and convert them into products. Many enzymes also...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 28, 2026

Measuring In Vitro ATPase Activity for Enzymatic Characterization
07:38

Measuring In Vitro ATPase Activity for Enzymatic Characterization

Published on: August 23, 2016

The Enzyme Function Initiative.

John A Gerlt1, Karen N Allen, Steven C Almo

  • 1Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. j-gerlt@uiuc.edu

Biochemistry
|October 18, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The Enzyme Function Initiative (EFI) developed a multidisciplinary strategy to reliably predict enzyme functions from genomic data. This approach aids in understanding metabolic diversity and has broad applications in medicine and industry.

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Area of Science:

  • Biochemistry
  • Genomics
  • Structural Biology

Background:

  • Assigning functions to novel enzymes from genomic projects is a significant challenge.
  • The Enzyme Function Initiative (EFI) was established to address this gap in knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review the structure and operations of the Enzyme Function Initiative (EFI).
  • To outline the multidisciplinary strategy developed by the EFI for reliable enzyme functional assignment.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing core facilities for protein structure, computation, and data dissemination.
  • Selecting enzymes from diverse superfamilies for experimental testing of predicted in vitro activities.
  • Integrating in vitro functional data with in vivo microbiological evaluation.

Main Results:

  • Development of a large-scale, multidisciplinary strategy for enzyme functional assignment.
  • Creation of computational and bioinformatic tools to support the strategy.
  • Provision of experimental protocols and reagents for enzyme production and characterization.

Conclusions:

  • The EFI's strategy enables reliable prediction of unknown enzyme functions.
  • This work will advance understanding of metabolic diversity and has wide-ranging applications.
  • Dissemination of strategy, tools, and data will benefit the scientific community.